London After Midnight
by screwydame
Summary: THE FINAL CHAPTER HAS BEEN ADDED! After the sudden suicide of James Horton, Nigel Townsend decides that life is far too short to spend alone. A J&N fic. STORY NOW COMPLETE!
1. Two Shakes of A Lamb's Tail

**London After Midnight**

aka Abbey's Indelibly Humiliating Crossing Jordan Fanfiction Attempt

**SETTING:** Directly after "O Brother, Where Art Thou?", which I am using as a season finale, rather than a season premiere which it was rightfully supposed to be. So basically, season three has happened, and ended with the honorable James Horton biting the big one. (Or did he? Eh, that's another fanfic for another time.)

**DISCLAIMER:** My friend Christine used to be obsessed with disclaimers. I can't really think of anything clever to say in this particular one except that I didn't pick the title because it sounded gothic or "Red Shoe Diaries" or anything. It's the name of a band that has a song that will be mentioned in a future chapter. This is my first solo fanfiction attempt for this particular show and I hope all bodes well, but if not then don't hesitate to tell me... no, actually, do hesitate, because I'm my own harshest critic so if it gets to the point where I shouldn't even bother then I'll most probably take it down before anyone has the chance to tell me it blows.

**NOTE: **I am the world's largest Jordan/Nigel shipper and for this I do not apologize in the least. Rock on.

**BY THE WAY:** I don't own anyone or anything that isn't already on my person, although judging by where the show's at right now, I fucking wish I did.

**SO WITHOUT FURTHER ADEU:** I bring you...

**Chapter One**

**"Two Shakes of a Lamb's Tail"**

**Nigel**

Eleven o'clock on a Friday night. On some level I can't bloody believe it. Eleven o'clock and where am I? Sifting through thousands and thousands of dental records looking for a potential match on a John Doe so badly burned in a warehouse fire that we're lucky we got so much as two useful teeth out of his mouth. Well, maybe not that little, I'm exaggerating. But it was bloody hard work. Now all that's left is the computer shit, thank God, but even still I wish I was finished. I fixed myself a double shot of espresso with my coffee about fifteen minutes ago and while I'm not exactly flying now, it's helping to keep my eyes open at least. It hurts to remember those blissful years when I was a teenager back in London before my Dad hailed me off to the Royal Navy; I could stay up until five in the morning and roll out of bed in time for tea during the summers when school was out. No responsibilities in the world. It was the eighties and the clubs were extraordinary, packed with feisty anarchist birds and revolutionary new music and ecstasy and blow and dancing, moshing, grinding... and I could wear eye makeup and it wasn't considered gay or goth or even pretentious, just cool. Just alternative, something you could do to distance yourself from all the other people and their labels. I miss when alternative was new. I hate being the oldest bloke in a goth club nowadays, I feel ridiculous, just me by myself at the bar waiting for someone that isn't pre-bloody-pubescent to tap me on the shoulder and ask me what my story is. Not even necessarily a woman, a bloke would be all right - I mean, I could use a bloody friend or two. Can't really picture Bug at one of those shindigs, Christ that's a laugh. Fact is Bug doesn't like to go out much at all except for the odd night at the Pogue, but I haven't felt much like going there myself lately. It's become quite the popular hangout, especially for certain members of the Boston PD. Well, maybe just one. It's gotten so that I don't even want to see Detective Woodrow Hoyt if I don't have to. And as for Jordan... bloody hell, it's not really her fault, after all. I don't think she knows. Well, I mean... surely she must know _something_, she's not a stupid girl by far. But then, Jordan's so wrapped up in her cases and her own drama most of the times that I'm surprised she even knows I exist. If she knew, things would probably be different. But I've been hiding my feelings from her for a long, long time, nearly a decade. I've gotten so used to it that I couldn't imagine my life without that particular cross to bear. It's silly, I know, it's ridiculous and above all, cowardly. But I am a coward. I am one. Especially when it comes to Jordan.

I don't seem to be getting anywhere with this John Doe and I suppose I should really just pack it in and go home, but I've got a lot of extra work piled up here. Death waits for no one, and unfortunately no one waits for me. Not even my quirky Vegan roommate with the stutter, he's undoubtedly at one of his late-night Texas Hold 'Em games with his old college buddies and he won't be home until four, at least. Bug's still floating around here somewhere, I suppose we could go grab a burger or something but there won't be anything to talk about except work, so I might as well just stay here.

I fear I'm starting to slip into some kind of latent period, not a mid-life crisis exactly, I'm still a bit too young for that, but maybe just the opposite of one. Instead of going out and doing foolish things and making drastic changes in my life, I mostly just stay in now and watch the telly, or stay at work late and make overtime, with which I purchase petrol for my bike and junk food and the occasional pornography off of digital cable, and even that has been lapsing recently, it's like I've got no sex drive at all. It's like I've got no drive, period. It's like I'm depressed, I suppose. I just don't want to admit it. And the plain fact is, I've got no one to admit it to.

I'm lonely, and it's pathetic. I'm a pathetic sod.

"Bloody fuckin' hell, I wish I could just drown myself out sometimes." Ah yes, Nigel-san, talking to yourself, the fabled first sign of insanity. At least there isn't anyone to hear me. But then I probably wouldn't do it if there were someone in here to hear me. Where's Bug? I cast a quick glance over my shoulder to ensure he isn't just being very quiet in a corner with his butterflies or something. No, no sign of the little bugger. Good.

I take my headphones from their usual place wrapped around a speaker on my desktop and plug them in, fitting them carelessly as well as they will over my rather large ears. I've got thousands of mp3s on this computer, only a fraction of my full collection, all illegally downloaded of course, and I'm positive I'll be sued at some point but I'm really starting to get apathetic about the whole bloody thing. Isn't that just so American of me? Until the Napster police come huffing and puffing and blowing my flat down, I just don't give a bloody fuck.

I only have to scroll a bit before I decide the Pistols might be nice right about now, and so I turn my speakers up and click play, and if I didn't have my headphones on all the dead in the place would be promptly woken, and maybe they will anyway because I'm drumming my fingers quite hard on my desktop, perfectly in sync with the backbeat of course. And then the music just takes me away like it so often does, and I barely even realize that I'm singing at the top of my lungs in an impression that would do Sid Vicious proud were he still alive today. "_Fuck this and fuck that! Fuck it all and fuck the fucking brat! She don't want a baby who looks like that! I don't want a baby who looks like that!_"

"Jesus Christ, Nigel, I can hear you from the break room." The voice is muffled through the foam lining of the headphones and the loudness of the music and my drumming and my voice. But I hear it just the same and I'm instantly contrite, clearing my throat and lowering my headphones to rest around my neck.

"Buggles," I greet him, swiveling my chair around so I can look at him as well. "The coffee's shit tonight."

"I couldn't agree more," he mutters, as monotone and as Liverpudlian as ever, bringing his styrofoam coffee cup up to eye-level and inspecting it as he would a piece of trace evidence. "But caffeine is caffeine." He lowers the cup to his lips and drinks from it with a halfhearted shrug. "Listen, Dr. Macy just called. He's coming back in tonight. Remember the guy who murdered Carl Jeffers? Jordan's brother. I forget his name. It seems he committed suicide. Jumped off a building, landed in water. Drowned. Probably cracked a rib when he hit the surface, which would explain his inability to swim. That's just my inital opinion, I'd have to actually see the body. But anyway we'll both get a chance to. They're bringing him in right now. Macy wants us both on the case, at least for as long as the D.A. lets us keep the body. You know Walcott, she'll have him transferred the second she finds out."

"Yeah. Right." I'm nodding as he speaks, listening carefully, trying to process it. James Horton committed suicide. Jordan's brother. Christ, that's a fucking earful. I tear the headphones from my neck and turn off the song. "Did Garret say if Jordan knows?"

And then he says the four worst words ever to come out of the mouth of a short, irritable Northerner of Indian descent. "She saw it happen."

"Bugger all," I mutter, turning away and swivelling my chair back around to face my desk, perhaps to hide my rather obvious distress. I bring one foot up and rest the heel of my sneaker on the edge of my chair, knobby knee jittering anxiously, bent straight up. That espresso is kicking in, it seems - I suddenly feel like I could lunge up and run a decathlon. Of course it could just be my nerves, or perhaps a lethal combination of the two. My chair squeaks with each jerky reflex of that joint, filling the silence of the room and providing background music for my voice when I speak again. "Is she all right?"

"Her brother just offed himself, it would be pretty hard to say yes to a question like that," I hear him reply from somewhere in my blind spot. "But she's not hurt or anything, as far as Macy says. You can ask her for yourself when she gets here."

I give a start from the chair, the foot on the edge propelling me forward to a standing position. I just might run that decathalon after all. My chair rolls backward and collides with my printer, which turns itself on.

"Bloody hell." I reach forwards and turn it off, placing both palms flat on the desk and then using them to push myself away, pacing across the room again. I make a stern concious decision not to ask my next question and then my voice betrays me, asking it anyway. "Is Woody with her?"

Bug looks up at me with peaked interest, and if the situation we've found ourselves thrown into weren't so dire, I'm sure he'd have smirked as well. "Why do you ask?"

I make another stern concious decision, and this one is to not look at Bug, not at all, not even one unintentional glance. My eyes, at least, seem to follow orders.

"Nevermind," I mutter, pretending to be interested in some misplaced files on my desk. "No reason."

Voices in the corridor interrupt anything Bug might have to say to that, and I thank whichever God you like for small favors. My sneakers take me to the hallway but I linger just out of sight, like always, like so many aspects of my life. A pack of people, and Garret leads them, barking orders to subordinates and yammering on about Walcott flipping her lid. I don't see Detective Woodrow Hoyt anywhere, but then I don't see Jordan, either. My eyes narrow as I scan the crowd, the office filling up with the usual corporate workday noises, lights flickering on, eleven o'clock gradually turning into nine AM.

And then I see her. Just a flash of her back, brushing right past me without taking notice and hurrying down the hall, long dark curls disappearing into the sanctuary of her office and slamming the door behind her.

"If anyone asks for me, Buggles-" I begin distractedly, hardly making the effort to turn my head in acknowledgement of the little bugger.

"I'll tell them you'll be back in two shakes of a lamb's tail," is his vapid reply.

...TBC, baby...


	2. She Just Wants to Have Her Ears Scratche...

**London After Midnight**

**DISCLAIMER: **Sorry about the few misspellings in the last chapter, I had "hot off the press" syndrome I guess. Actually I did do a spell check but I just forgot to upload the corrected version. That won't happen this time. Keep the honest reviews coming. Special thanks to the person who said my Nigel sounds like Nigel, because this is the first time I'm ever actually writing as him, although I've wanted to for a long time.

**Chapter Two**

**"She Just Wants Her Ears Scratched"**

**Jordan**

Dead in the water.

That's what they tell me. Dead in the water, butter side down. He jumped from a window. But not really. He didn't really jump, he fell. Tipped himself over. Backwards, like a prophet of God. Like a holy sacrifice. James Horton, my big brother. He gave himself unto the Lord.

I watched it happen. I watched him climb up and I watched him go down. I held out my hand and he held out his, both asking the other to join them. One in life and one in death, and neither was willing to comply. Jordan and James, light and dark. Watching him ascend that window ledge was the most beautiful thing I've ever seen in my entire life. He did it with such grace, such purpose. _Come with me_, he whispered, his palm outstretched like he was asking me to dance. And he just looked so fucking happy up there that I thought about it. I did. I thought about what it would be like to let him pull me up and what it would be like to jump off with him, our arms around each other like a pair of skydivers, James my big brother keeping me safe even as we met our mutual demise. I thought about how twisted it would be, how sickly beautiful; how all the torment inside of me would be vanquished before I even hit the water, and if I were still alive how poetic it would be to drown, my corpse floating to the surface, white and glimmering in the moonlight. Blissful. Peaceful. Like a movie. I thought about it all. I thought about how easy it could be.

And that's what scared me out of it. How easy it would be to make it all go away, to do something so reckless and insane for the sake of simply ceasing to be. The easy way out. And it wasn't just that. In those last few seconds before it happened, I thought about how much I loved to live. Not about how much I loved my life, really, but just the immeasurable joy of living. The taste of food. The way your whole body wakes up when you hear a really great song for the first time. The way someone can say the simplest thing and validate your entire existence, make you feel like you're worth it, you made it, you _are_.

In an undeniably real and unexplainable way, that's how James made me feel when he asked me if I would commit suicide with him tonight. It tugged at my heart and I knew that he loved me and I didn't want him to die. I held out my hand and he wouldn't take mine and I wouldn't take his, either, and I yelled at him to get down, to trust me, that I would help him, that I wanted to help him, and I did, I wanted to, I wanted it so badly.

But I didn't say I loved him. I should have. I know that I should have, it should have been the last thing he heard. That someone finally loved him, that I, at least, loved him. But I couldn't say anything. I didn't know what else to say, because suddenly he stopped waiting for me and he leaped alone. Fell alone. Dove alone, and landed alone. Maybe not. I don't know. Maybe he landed with God.

I'm in my office now. Somehow I got to my office. Somehow Woody got me into the elevator, onto the ground, into a car. I don't even know how. I don't even know how much time has passed since then. I'm a zombie, I'm the undead. I might as well have jumped off that fucking window ledge, for all the lifelessness I feel right now. My moment of revelation in the abandoned building crashed as heavily into depression as my brother's body crashed into the water.

I fall onto my couch.

I don't know where Woody is. I don't know where anyone is. I don't feel like crying. I don't feel anything._._

There's a knock on the door. I don't get up to answer it. It opens anyway.

"Jordan?" British vowels curl around my name and I look up to confirm my guess.

"Hey, Nige."

He stands wedged between the door and the wall, the top of his head just brushing the top of the doorway. The tallest guy I've ever met besides Dad; I took to calling Nigel _My Giant_ when I first met him but the nickname never really stuck. After a few months of knowing him, I realized I couldn't define him by any one aspect, let alone his size, which is the least of what makes him Nigel.

He seems afraid to get too close right now, which I don't blame him for - I have a tendency to bark when riled up and there have been lots of times when he got the brunt of it. And while I feel I could snap at any moment and for any number of reasons, I don't have the heart to turn him away. He probably just wants to make sure I'm okay. Nigel's like that; a sweet guy. My best friend in the place, next to Garret. But more than that. Nigel and I relate on another level, a deeper one, probably due to the fact that our mothers both died when we were ten. We never really acknowledged that to each other but we both know it's there, and sometimes it crackles the air between us like static, begging to surface. I don't know what would happen if it did. I've never really talked to anyone who knew what it was like to lose a mother so young.

Except James.

"Come in," I finally relent to saying, because like a vampire, I know he won't until I invite him. "And close the door. I don't feel like talking to anyone. Actually, I don't really feel like talking at all, Nige."

"All right," he softly replies, doing as I said and closing the door behind him. His hands slip into his front pockets as he walks awkwardly to me, his steps lingering. It reminds me of the way a boy would walk over to a girl in elementary school, afraid of bridging the gender gap for the first time. But Nigel's so overgrown and lanky that it makes me smile a little. Just a little. I didn't even know I was capable of it right now. He doesn't sit down; he'll need permission for that too, I guess.

"I can do the talking, if you like," he suggests. He didn't press me and I appreciate that, because I know that every other person I come in contact with tonight will.

"Sure," I reply, slightly less enthused than I wanted to sound. "What the hell." He still won't sit but I don't ask him to; I don't even pat the seat beside me. Just another of all the little games Nigel and I play with each other; I want to see how long he'll wait for me.

"All right," he says again, relenting to perching just on the arm of the sofa for now, and facing the wall on the other side of the room as he speaks. "I had a thought tonight that I'd like to move to a smaller apartment, one I could afford to live in on my own. I suppose it wouldn't really matter if it was a shitbox or anything, as long as they allowed pets, because I think I'd like to get a dog. A proper English bulldog, a female. And she'd have a spiked collar. And she'd bark very loud at anyone who looked at her funny, but inside she'd really be a big sweetheart who just wanted her ears scratched. I think I'd like to name her Jordan. Would that be all right with you, love?"

My hand goes immediately to my forehead, hiding my eyes as I roll them, and I smile, small but grateful. Thank God for Nigel and his jokes. I don't answer him but I do laugh; a very small, brief chuckle.

"No, I'm serious," he continues, successfully encouraged, still seated a good two feet away from me on the arm of the sofa but turning to face me now, one knobby knee bent towards me. I try my best not to look at him directly; this is Nigel's slick way of making me comfortable, getting me to open up. It's starting to work already and if I look at him it'll be the undoing of me. "Listen, I could put a sidecar on my motorcycle." My smile widens. "I could get her a little helmet with the union jack on it." I laugh again. "Jordan, come on, look at me," he pleads, his tone still pleasant, comedic. I don't look. Okay, maybe one glance. A tiny, almost unnoticeable glance out of the corner of my eye. "Jordan... here, girl... come on, girl..." He pats his lap, snaps his fingers, whistles lowly.

"All right!" I exclaim, turning my head to face him. Turning my whole body, actually. "Jesus Christ, Nige. Talk about persistent. I don't know why I egg you on."

"Because you love me!" he exclaims, proud as a little boy. He _still_ won't sit next to me, the crazy bastard, now he's leaning over so far he'll probably fall onto the damn couch any second. I wonder if he would jump right back up and return to his place on the arm if he did fall, just because I still haven't given him a written invitation yet. "Come on then, seriously," his tone softens when he speaks again, his eyes relaxing into solemn observance. "Are you all right, Jordan?"

"Sneaky limey," I scold him halfheartedly for his trickery, my smile disappearing into reluctant compliance. "Sit down."

And he does, moving so carefully and quietly that you'd think I really was an English bulldog with a spiked collar, and a rabid one at that. I catch a gust of his cologne as it settles into its new position, something fresh and herbal like basil or sage. The couch is far too small for him; he stretches his lanky legs out in front, crossing one ankle over the other, and rests his long arms behind his head, elbows bent, hands folded. It never ceases to amaze me how unified Nigel's body is, the same length and width all the way down like a gangly rockstar or something. In its own strange, unique way, it's perfect.

I'm staring at his stomach, flat and hidden underneath his thermal shirt, when he looks at me again. I pull my eyes immediately away, gazing at the space between us, then at the wall, then at my fingers in my lap. I use a few of them to push hair behind my ears.

"So, love?" he gently prods, looking for an answer to his former question.

"I'm fine," I reply, robotic and instinctive. _I'm fine_, two words I've clung to my whole life. Denial, pure and sweet. No one has to know when I'm upset. If I need help then I must be incapable, weak, incomplete. Worthless. I don't need your comfort, Nigel Townsend, no matter how hell-bent you may be on giving it. I'm fine and I can take care of myself.

"Really," I go on to assure him, because I know he doesn't buy it. "I'm just still in shock, that's all. There's really nothing to talk about, Nige." He softens reluctantly, maybe accepting my explanation, or maybe just accepting the fact that he tried to get it out of me and failed. If I didn't know him better I'd swear I just saw him frown.

"All right, Jordan," he nods, straightening to a rigid sit as if he's about to stand up again. A slight panic rises up in me; I don't want him to go yet. I want him to tell more jokes at my expense, to say something lighthearted to take my mind off all of this again. I'm not ready to talk about this yet, Nigel, please understand. I wouldn't even know where to start.

But he stands up anyway, heading slowly and unwillingly to the door, hands in pockets again. He pulls one out to turn the knob and open it, then he turns back to look at me, and in that experienced Nigel way that's so genuine it actually makes my stomach drop with guilt and sorrow, his whole face brightens into sudden forgiveness and he smiles, closed-mouth, and shrugs. "If you do want to talk, love, you know where to find me. I don't suppose I'll be getting home tonight, there's lots of work to be done. Bloody wish I had a couch in my office. But then, I suppose I'd have to share it with Bug, and the little blighter's rumored to snore like a cartoon bear, so perhaps I'm better off without it."

"Nigel, wait." The words leave my mouth before I even think them and his face brightens in a different kind of way, eyebrows raised in surprised attentiveness.

But before I can finish whatever it is I was going to say, the door opens wider and Woody Hoyt pushes his way through.


	3. An Intruder

**London After Midnight**

**DISCLAIMER:**Eh. I tried to get into Woody's head, I really did, but ... okay, I didn't, lol. I've never played Woody before and I've never had the desire to, so unless I encounter some really funky shrooms between now and the end of this fic, you won't see a Woody-centric chapter. This particular chapter is brief, but I'll make up for it by writing the next one post-haste and updating both at the same time.

**MANY THANKS:** Thank you **Aesear** for visiting this dark and dusty little corner of I really wish you would update _Taking Off the Mask_, I thought it was wonderful and it was you and **TheNewMoo** who finally made me not so blatantly terrified to post a J&N fic up here. Eternal thanks to **Watson1** for all your much appreciated comments. I'm not worthy! To answer your question, yes I have an extremely good grasp of English dialects as I'm a total and complete Anglophile and I have been writing nonstop British characters for the past five years (or is it more? God I can't remember) - _Whose Line is it Anyway?_, the Beatles and co. (lots of Liverpool there), plus many original characters... and this past year I've played Bug (among others, including a very hardcore and steady Jordan) on several CJ RPGs, and now the loveable huggable Nigel. I have a terrible weakness for Brits. Bugger all, let me stop babbling and start writing! :) Many many thanks to everyone.

**Chapter Three**

**"An Intruder"**

**Nigel**

It's always the way.

This is always just the way for Jordan and I. Right when we're beginning to have an honest-to-goodness conversation, just when she's about to open up to me, to trust me, to let me in for even just a handful of precious, far-too-short moments, something comes along to interrupt us.

I remember she and I in my office - was it an entire year ago already? Bloody hell, time slips through the fingers like sand, doesn't it? I remember it as though it were an hour ago, and my cheeks fill up with blood and my heart fills up with shame and deep mortification at the very thought. She and I in my office, and I had just matched her phantom print to the prints found in the car where Carl Jeffers' body was discovered. She asked me to keep it a secret and I knew that I couldn't, and I told her why. Told her that I had a breaking point even though I cared for her, that no one cared for her more than I. I told her just enough without telling her everything, every sordid, desperate detail. I was close to it. I was dangerously close, as close as I've ever come in the past ten years. She was slipping into it again, into the paranoia and the depression and the brutal, masochistic _obsession_ of her mother's murder, and the last time that happened she was almost dumped off a rooftop. I didn't want to see it happen again and I would have told her anything, I would have told her _everything_ just to get her to stop, to think clearly, to come back to us, to me. I asked her whose print the phantom was and I never thought she'd actually tell me. I never thought she'd open up to me so much, let me in when she never had before, shed light where she had always kept me locked away in the dark. My words had stunned her, it seemed, so much so that her guards came crumbling down before her and in that instant, in that instant when she told me it was her brother who had murdered that policeman, I saw more of her than I had ever seen and it was terrifying, and it was beautiful. I was under a spell and just as I opened my mouth to confess what I had been keeping inside for so long, Dr. Macy showed up and caused my testicles to bunch up in fear as though I had sat in a bucket of ice water.

Much the same happens tonight - with the exception of the retreat of my nether regions, because I am completely and totally used to Woodrow Hoyt breaking up the party by now. He barely acknowledges me, brushing past with a mumbled, "What's up, Nige?" or some other such greeting, headed straight for Jordan and the spot on the couch I sat in not two minutes ago. He sits utterly without invitation, and I'm both mildly appalled and severely jealous of his assumption and his courage. I would leave right now were I not still so awestruck by the entire entrance.

Didn't even think to bloody ask if he was interrupting something. But no, of course he wasn't. Through the eyes of everyone but myself, there is simply nothing to interrupt when it comes to Jordan and I. Not ever, and to think so would be outlandish and stupid. I don't know what it is that amuses Bug about my feelings for Jordan. The same thing that makes Woodrow Hoyt believe I'm no competition, I suppose. I just wish I could figure out what that is.

I'm still standing in the doorway. It's unlike me, really. I need permission to enter a room but I always seem to know when I'm not wanted. I guess it's that I just don't feel like an imposition yet; we were in the middle of something and Jordan did not want me to go. I'll leave when she asks and not a moment sooner.

Our eyes meet over the spikey top of Woody's head and I do sense an ounce or two of guilt in those large hazel orbs - it floods me instantly and helplessly with warmth, and the illusion that she does actually care for me, and whether or not my feelings are hurt. Seconds later I know I'm being foolish, reading too much into things as I so often do. She only feels bad that we were interrupted, and that she is not going to turn Woodrow Hoyt away.

"Jordan, are you okay?" It's miraculous how one can lose one's chipper Wisconsin accent after just three years of living in a different state. I don't suppose I'll ever lose my accent, if it hasn't happened already. And isn't that just like me, sticking out like a sore thumb when others can so effortlessly blend into the majority. "Jeez, I thought he was going to pull you right over the ledge back there. You almost let him, too. For Christ's sakes, Jordan, what were you thinking?"

My heart leaps up nearly into my throat and my mind races with terrible imagery. _Exactly what the bloody hell happened tonight?_ The words are on my tongue before I stop myself, remembering I shouldn't even still be loitering around in this room, and that this isn't my private conversation with Jordan anymore, it's somebody else's. _An intruder_, I underline the phrase quite clearly in my mind with some bitterness, my jealousy beginning to wash over my usual lighthearted demeanor and turning me melancholy. Why was it Woody that got to be there with her tonight? Why is it Woody that always gets to play the hero? Is it always going to be this way, Woody the gun-toting cop and I the killer-pervert, lurking in the shadows?

I catch myself in that, and in the physical representation of my analogy, and all at once it shocks and shames me and I know I've overstayed my welcome here. I slip out without a word, without even clearing my throat to announce my departure. The last thing I want right now is to be noticed, and I doubt that she even would anyway.


	4. Which Way Did You Think He Was Going To ...

**London After Midnight**

**DISCLAIMER:** Daaamn, I thought I was going to go crazy when went down. At least it gave me time to complete this chapter so I could post two at once. Man, I really, really hate J&W scenes and I was afraid this chapter was going to suck. But it took an interesting turn on me at the end and I ended up being pretty cool with it. I wish Woody would really wise up like this on the show, lol.

**Chapter Four**

**"Which Way Did You Think He Was Going To Fall?"**

**Jordan**

I see him leave, soundlessly slipping out the door and closing it softly behind him. I want to call out to him or follow him, even though I don't know what I'd say if I did. Besides, Woody's right here, and sometimes there are things I want to do, but I don't want anyone to know that I want to do them, so I don't. If I left Woody alone in my office to go chasing after Nigel Townsend, then that would be weird and odd and it would have to mean something. And when something means something, it ruins everything. It's scary and threatening and it would be better if I just sat here and let Woody ask his questions, because that's normal and expected and what I'm used to. Sometimes it's just easier to do what you're used to. I can't handle any more surprises tonight.

"I was thinking I could get him down," I reply to Woody's former query, very plainly and very calmly and very staccato. "Obviously I didn't do such a good job of that."

"Hey, that's not your fault." His voice is gentle and I feel his arm slip around my shoulders, turning me against his chest. One of my knees touches one of his and it's nice, I guess, to be held by a man that is not my father. But Woody smells like too much Old Spice and I close my eyes against the strong aroma because they water with the responsibility of it. This is always how it starts, with the Old Spice and the arm around the shoulder, nice and calm and normal. I can sit here and let him hold me and be fine, and then the walls slowly start to creep in on me and suddenly it's like I'm suffocating.

"The guy was a lunatic, Jordan, he tried to kill you. Don't blame yourself for this." His hand is on my head, in my hair. The wall with the window moves a little closer, the door moves a little farther away.

"Yeah, I know," I whisper, a little uncomfortable and a little overwhelmed. "I know. I'm not. Look, I'm not... I'm not really ready to talk about this right now, okay? I told you at the Pogue I wanted to be alone." My mouth is dry. Suffocating. I need water, I need air, I need _space_. The problem with Woody is he comes on too strong, a golden retriever bounding into the room barking and jumping at me, begging me to shake his paw, throw him a stick, something, _anything_. He means well but he's blatant and he's obvious and that scares the shit out of me.

"Okay," he whispers back, lowering his hand from my hair but keeping his arm around my shoulders. "We don't have to talk about it now. I'm just glad you're okay, Jordan. I was really worried you were gonna... you know. Do something... stupid. Back there."

What am I supposed to say to that_? Like what, Woody, kill myself? Well, I thought about it, Farm Boy, so try that on for size_. I don't know. I don't know what I'm supposed to say. I know he has the best intentions but the Old Spice is clogging my throat. I push away and stand, pacing to my desk and leaning back against it, ten fingers clutching the wood.

I wish Nigel was still here, I wish it was still Nigel. He's good at taking my mind off things. Now that he's gone I can't stop thinking about it, I keep replaying what happened in the apartment over and over in my head, hearing the words, the splash.

I didn't want to talk about it yet. I wanted time to let it sink in.

"Jordan?" Woody hasn't stood from the couch yet but I know that he will soon.

"Were you trained to handle jumpers?" My voice comes out of nowhere, distant and slightly distracted, my mind putting something together, snapping things into place like a jigsaw puzzle.

"What do you mean?" He stands on cue, makes his way over to the desk, and leans next to me, mirroring my stance almost exactly. It annoys me slightly, but I'm too preoccupied to move just yet.

"I mean, were you trained? To handle suicidals? The proper procedure for talking them down?" I know where I'm going with it now and I come out of my memory with full force, my eyes piercing through Woody's soft aquamarine with my sudden focused stare. The words gather just behind my lips, ready to explode if he gives me an answer I don't like.

"Well, yeah. I mean, I guess. Where are you going with this, Jordan?"

I don't like it.

"You're not supposed to pull a weapon on a jumper," my voice is clipped, irritated, precise. "You're not supposed to do that. It scares them. You're supposed to just talk to them, get them to trust you. Let them know life is worth living. God, fuck, I don't know, lie to them if you have to, anything to get them down. That's supposed to be the main objective, _getting them down_." I push away from my desk and stalk across the room to the center of it, the shock of my brother's suicide subsiding and being replaced with anger, horror, realization.

"I know that, Jordan," Woody pushes away from the desk too, he pushes away from the desk and shadows me right into the center of the room and that _really_ makes me mad. "I tried, okay, but-"

"No, you didn't!" I'm shouting suddenly, shouting now. "I don't want to hear that you tried. _I_ tried. Maybe not as much as I should have, but I was the one that tried. You were the one waving your big fucking gun around and telling me to get out of the way so you could _get a clean shot!_" A hoarse cry tears itself from my throat and I feel tears just behind my eyelids that I don't dare let pass.

"Jordan, I didn't say it like that!" he exclaims, reaching out for me, wrapping his hand around my forearm. I tear it away.

"Yes, you did! _Yes you did!_ That's exactly how you said it!" My brow furrows as I remember, and I know that it's the truth. "_'Move out of the way, Jordan, so I can get a clean shot.'_ That's exactly what you said. What the fuck, Woody? Did the police academy in Kewaunee train you to shoot at a man on a window ledge? Which way did you think he was going to fall if you hit him? Back _into _the apartment?!" I'm verging on hysteria now, I didn't realize any of this while it was happening, not any of it. I should have told Woody to leave, I should have got him out of the apartment. I could have talked James down, I know that I could have if Woody wasn't there.

"He was reaching out for you, Jordan!" Woody's really yelling too, now, and I can't tell if he's concerned or angry and I don't really care either way. "He was going to pull you over the edge! What was I supposed to do?"

"I can take care of myself!" I growl, stepping away from him, needing to put physical distance between us and fast. "He wasn't anywhere near me! He wouldn't have pulled me if I didn't want to go! How dare you threaten to shoot him, that's not your call! You made it seem like there was no alternative! _Move out of the way so I can get a clean shot?_ Jesus fucking Christ, Woody, Jesus fucking _Christ!_"

"He had a gun too, Jordan!" Woody refuses to give in to defeat; his nostrils flare as he stands rooted in place - I guess he needs physical distance too, right now. "Maybe you forgot about that! Look, I understand you're upset-"

"_Upset?!_" I'm livid now, crossing back to him with determined speed.

"-But it isn't my fault James killed himself!"

My hands fly at his collar; I grip fistfuls of his shirt and shake him with futile strength that weakens as my anger melts into sadness. "Yes it is!" I cry, my voice rough and deepening with the tears I've held back all fucking night long. "Yes it is. He put his gun down. I told you not to shoot."

"I _didn't_ shoot, Jordan," his voice is hushed again, almost a whisper. He reaches up to brush my cheek with his fingers and it takes me a second to realize he's clearing my face of tears. I'm crying. No, I'm sobbing. "Jordan, I didn't shoot."

"I know! Fuck!!" I release his collar, every movement tense with exasperation, and I back away, nearly collapsing against the couch. "Just go away, Woody. Just go away."

"Jordan, I don't want to leave you alone like this." I don't even lift my eyes to look at him. It's horrible enough I'm crying in front of him, in front of_ anyone_, I don't need him to see me in all my vulnerable glory too.

"_I'm fine!!_" I shout, and my hands are balled up fists at either side of my head, grabbing at my own sweaty, curling hair in frustration. "You never take a hint! Just go the fuck away!"

There's silence for a long time after that, but no footsteps. He doesn't leave. He doesn't leave and that makes me so angry that all there is to do is cry, cry still, cry harder, my eyes squeezed shut, my hair straggling down into my face like a little girl having a temper tantrum. I guess in a way I am. I feel like any minute now I'm going to stand up and throw myself at the wall, kicking and punching and screaming the entire time.

"I know you feel like you have to blame someone, Jordan." His voice is so calm and so controlled that it makes me want to spit at him. For no reason, for no good reason at all. "Because this is such a fucked-up situation and there's no real explanation for it. But this isn't my fault and you know it, and all I ever wanted to do was help you. Not just because I'm a cop and it's my job. Because I care about you and you're my friend. No matter what happened or didn't happen between us. I know that you're not interested. I'm not stupid. I'm not a stupid guy, even though sometimes it feels like you think that. I know you don't... want me. I accepted that a long time ago, Jordan. In the desert. I just want to be your friend. I just want to help you in any way you'll let me." There's another pause, a briefer one, and I can hear him sigh. "But you won't let me, will you? Okay, Jordan. Fine. I'll take the hint this time. I'll go away. I'm sorry about your brother. I'm sorry this had to happen." Footsteps now, and the door creaks open. "They found his body, Jordan. It's in the crypt."

Then the door closes, as quietly and as calmly as his words had been, the sound seeming almost like an extension of Woody's speech. The last thing he said to me echoes around in my brain and I force myself to get a grip, releasing my hair, wiping at my tears with my wrists, sniffling emotion back inside of me where it belongs. I brush my hair back behind my ears with wet fingers and stand from the couch, walking with sudden determination to the door, on the way to the crypt to visit my brother's body.


	5. I Want An Autopsy

**London After Midnight**

**DISCLAIMER: **I meant to write Fan Fiction Dot Net where there are funky missing words in the last two disclaimers, but I abbreviated it and for some reason the server didn't like that too much. Should be "Thanks for visiting my dark little corner of Fan Fiction Dot Net" and "When Fan Fiction Dot Net went down".

**TO MY FELLOW JORDAN AND NIGEL SHIPPERS:** There's a new RPG up on yahoogroups and the only characters taken are Woody and Devan. I asked to play Nigel. If there are any fellow J&N lovers out there who want to portray the twosome with me, (**Aesear**? **NewMoo**?) I suggest you visit the site and sign up as Jordan! Please -- I really don't want to play a lonely Nigel in a Jordan and Woody world, LOL. :) The site is and if that URL doesn't show up on here, then just Email me at screwydamexo at aol dot com and I'll get you a spot on the guild.

**Chapter Five**

**"I Want An Autopsy"**

**Nigel**

I told Jordan there was plenty of work to do and I wasn't lying; when I get back to my desk with a fresh cup of cappuccino my John Doe is pushed to the back of the pile and it's James Horton who has top priority - a bit of a John Doe in his own right, I can't find evidence that he's even existed these past forty years on any national or worldwide database on the Internet. No birth certificate, social security number, driver's license, work authorization, passport... Lord knows how he's managed to live under the radar for so long, and it really begs the question of how he earned that living.

Hours pass and I'm still here, yawning away at my desk and a bit later in Trace, my body beginning to verge on a barely functioning state. I shuffle along and wipe sleep from my eyes and knock things over in the midst of my fatigue. I'm on my fifth cup of coffee in the break room when Garret catches me spill a pint of cream and claps me on the shoulder, telling me to go home and get some rest. That sounds brilliant to me, but I can't stop myself from popping into Jordan's office again to check if she's still all right. Not that I believed her when she told me she was okay earlier, but she was at least functioning properly. She wasn't a mess. I want to make sure she's still that way.

I knock a few times on the door but there's no answer and I wonder if she's asleep. I hope she is, it would be good for at least one of us to rest, but especially her. I turn the knob hesitantly and wedge open the door, leaning just my head through the opening. The room is empty, but I have an inkling where she might be instead.

The crypt isn't as busy as it was when he was first brought in, mostly everyone has gone home again or is off doing other aspects of the job. I notice Lily in the corner, her hair tinted a greenish hue from the reflection of the lights against the walls. She sees me and smiles, and I return the favor, then she goes back to work. Jordan stands not far from the door, turned away from me, her hair a long dark broom straight down her backside. In front of her is a metal gurney, and on that gurney is James Horton's body, partially covered in a white sheet.

It doesn't feel right to disturb her. She's so still, like a stone statue of a guardian, head angled down, keeping watch. She barely blinks. It doesn't feel right to disturb her, not at all. At least not vocally. I take an unsteady step forwards, and then another, and another. Then I reach out and cup my palm gently against the silky sheet of ash brown that hugs her skull, and I smooth it all the way down to the frayed tips just above her lower back before I let my hand drop away.

She does look up at me, but the spell she was under is not quite broken; I can see it still shadowing her eyes, dark circles having grown beneath them since the last time I saw her. Her lips are pursed, her jaw tense, her brows furrowed. She looks lost, betrayed, abandoned.

"I'm going home, love." I don't know why I say that. It's a stupid thing to say. Her brother is dead on a stainless steel table, she doesn't care if I stay or if I go. The way she's looking at me right now, I can't even tell if she recognizes me or not. "For a few hours, anyway. I'll be back in the morning. Or at eight-thirty, because it is the morning, actually." I give a halfhearted, nervous chuckle but she stares at me still, blankly. No, not blankly. Jordan could never appear a blank slate. There's always something on her mind and she always looks as if she's carrying the troubles of the world around in her pocket. I want to touch her again, really touch her this time, not just her hair. Skin against skin. I want to touch her face. "Shall I drive you anywhere, love?" My words are oddly breathless, I hope she accepts.

"Is there going to be an autopsy?" her voice is rough and untried when she asks, as though it were the first thing she'd said for quite some time.

I don't have to ask on whom, I know what she means. "I don't think so, love," I reply, my eyes sneaking a glance at the body on the table. His lower half is beneath the sheet but I can see the bruising on his ribcage, cloudy purples and blues. Bug's theory was right, then, it seems. "I think we're all in agreement..." My voice trails off. "Well, it's just not necessary, is all."

Our eyes catch each other for a long time, so long that it's almost uncomfortable, her gaze probing mine deeply. I wonder briefly if she can read my thoughts, and I can feel my cheeks grow hot at the notion. I bloody hope she can't. I look away.

"I want an autopsy," she says, so seriously that I wouldn't dream of arguing with her. "I'm going to tell Garret. I want to know... _everything_, I want to know what he last ate and what kind of scars he has and if he's had tattoos removed and if he's ever been to Mexico or Europe or the North fucking Pole... if he's ever done anything I should know about, then I want to know about it. But mostly I want to know if he was on something tonight. I need to know that. I need to know what kind of medication he was taking. I need to know what was wrong with him that he would go flying out of a fucking window and die with a smile on his face." Her words are sharp and almost angry, but I know it's not directed towards me, not really. I'm just standing in the way of whatever her true target is. Her brother. Her father, maybe. James's father. Maybe herself.

"If that's what you really want," I begin, my voice sounding softer in the aftermath of her outburst. Perhaps she, too, realizes how loud she was, because the edge comes off of her features slightly, and the darkness out of her eyes.

"I want you to do it, Nigel," she interrupts me, and instead of sounding agitated, now she just sounds tired, as tired as I feel. "That's what I really want."

Panic surges through me like a fire alarm, and for a handful of seconds I am wide awake. "I don't know, Jordan..."

"Please," her tone is desperate and her hand is on my arm, my wrist particularly, skin against skin. I can feel all the air escape my lungs, but it isn't audible as more than a sigh. "It's just that I trust you, and I know you'll be... thorough. Please, Nige. This is very important to me."

I look briefly at the man on the gurney. The truth is, I've never seen him alive. Never seen him until right this instant, laid out dead before me. The honorable, infamous James Horton, if that is his real name. I suppose I could cut into him without it being a conflict of interest. It wouldn't bother me much. But having to see Jordan afterward, and having her know that I'd just stuck my hand inside her brother's chest...

But of course that's why she wants me to do it. I'm a medical examiner, and a good one, and that's exactly what she sees me as. A medical examiner. A doctor. Professional, clinical... _thorough_. I wonder if my skin feels like a rubber glove to her, I wonder if I smell like a hospital.

"I, um..." Oh, come off it, Nigel. You're being absurd. "All right, love. All right. I'm your guy." She releases my wrist and I use that hand to pluck her chin playfully between my thumb and index finger. She gives me a smile, it's small and it's sideways but it's there, and I want so badly to dip my head down and kiss those thin, birthmarked lips. I've wanted it so many times, wondered what they taste like, how warm they are. But the gravity of the situation pulls me out of it, and I tear myself away from her, feeling thoroughly unraveled, my sudden desire for her reminding me how long it's been since I've... been in a situation that calls for desire. I recall suddenly that night at the goth club when I brought Woodrow with me, looking for Alistair Dark, the teenager who pretended to be a vampire, and that young girl with the bob haircut came up and licked Woody's skin, long, up from his neck and over the side of his face. I don't know why I think of that but now I can't seem to get that image out of my head. It's funny, the things that stick with you over time.

In any event, I wish there were a bucket of ice water around here somewhere, because my nether regions are in a very unsettled state at the moment, and I just hope she doesn't notice. I back away quickly, turning for the door. I don't look back until I'm a safe distance away from her.

"Are you sure I can't drive you someplace, love?" I ask, and this time I really hope she declines. "Your Dad's, perhaps?"

"No, I uh... I think I'll stick around here until morning," she replies, and then smiles a bit wider, and corrects herself. "I mean eight-thirty, because it is morning, actually."

Ah, so she was listening to me after all. A smile breaks out over my own face, brilliant and full of English horse teeth. "Good morning then, love," I say, giving her a wave as I exit the crypt.


	6. A Purple Dress

**London After Midnight**

**MANY THANKS: **Thank you **Auron** and **HShuler** for your compliments. I can't believe how many other J&N shippers I'm meeting all of a sudden. The truth is out there, lol.

**Chapter Six**

**"A Purple Dress"**

**Jordan**

Two days pass.

I sleep on the couch in my office both nights, if you could call it sleep. Naps are more like it. Refuge. I close my eyes and meditate for hours before unconsciousness finally comes and snatches away all rational thought, and even then it's only for a short while before I awaken with a start, my mind racing with all the things that need to be done.

I don't go to see Dad and he doesn't come to see me, either, but he does call, once, to let me know he's made funeral arrangements for James, and he asks if the coffin should be open or closed. I don't really know the answer to that, so I ask Nigel and he says open, that once the body is embalmed and dressed no one will notice it has been mildly autopsied.

As far as that goes, Nigel performs it as requested and tells me everything I need to know. James's stomach contents were nearly nonexistent; he likely hadn't eaten for days before his death. There were no illegal narcotics in his system but he was probably taking some kind of medication for anxiety, Zoloft or a less expensive substitute, maybe. He had never been tattooed or anything - his body was surprisingly clean except for the long vertical scars curving from his wrists nearly to his elbows. He had tried to kill himself before. He had tried and he had failed, and knowing that made me so incredibly depressed that I went to James's neatly sewn-up body and I bowed my head against his shoulder and I cried for an hour, maybe more. His skin smelled like tepid water and morgue and tragic death, so different from the fresh, soapy boyish scent that filled my apartment the night he came to ask if he could stay. I should have talked to him more than I did that night. I shouldn't have seen him as an immediate threat, I should have realized he was just a really fucked-up person with problems, just like me. I should have been a better sister.

_I wish I could have been a better brother_.

That's what he told me. That's what he said, right before he fell. I wanted to reach out and grab him back in, hold him against me and tell him it was okay, that I never even knew I had a brother so no matter what he did, he was a pleasant surprise and I loved him. Even if not all of that was fully true, I should have said it. I did love him, it was a part of me so new and untried. I was only starting to realize it and now it's all gone and I spent so much of our time together in fear of him that I never even really got to know him. I didn't know he was so rooted in sadness, I didn't know he was the type to slit his wrists or starve himself, I didn't know he had panic attacks. I didn't know anything, I never knew anything. I didn't know he loved me.

But he did. I see now that he did. In his twisted, beautiful way, James loved me. That's why he took me up on that elevator, that's why he showed me the rubble and the ruin of his childhood, that's why he jumped. That's why he asked me to jump. He loved me and he thought that I was like him, that we were cut from the same cloth. In a way, we were. But not closely enough. Not enough for me to want to end my life for him, _with_ him.

And then comes James Horton's funeral, and I am standing in the center of a room in the mortuary that often sends its people to come pick up bodies from us at the morgue. It's a small room and there aren't many people in it, because apparently not many people knew James Horton, or at least they didn't know him by that name. Dad is here, and Garret. Lily and Bug and Peter and Devan, even the honorable Renee Walcott put in an appearance a little earlier in the day. Woody is loitering around, maybe to show his condolences, maybe hunting for an apology. I want to give him one. I do. I was a bitch to him the other day in my office and I know that what happened to James was not his fault. He showed his gun because he was afraid, but he didn't pull the trigger and for that I am incredibly grateful. In a few days when we go to work on a case together I will make a joke in that casual way of mine and slip an apology in after the punchline to take the pressure off. I just can't do it now, not today. Right now I can barely mutter _Thank you_ when someone tells me they're sorry, right now it is taking all the will power I have at my immediate disposal not to walk out that door, go across the street to the gas station, and purchase a pack of Marlboro Lights 100's. If I did I'd stand outside and smoke the whole pack, one right after the other, and I'd probably never be able to quit again for the rest of my life.

The day goes on and Nigel arrives in time for the service and sits behind me in the rows of wooden folding chairs, leaning forward to place his hand on my shoulder and whisper his apologies for being late, but he was trying to get a cab because he didn't think it right to drive his motorcycle to a funeral. Something about that strikes me as funny, I don't know why, but I laugh, just once, briefly but too loudly. It's hysterical laughter, I guess, nervous, hysterical laughter. What a person does when there is no other conceivable thing to do. I'm a mess. I turn my head against my father's chest and remain that way for the entirety of the service, forgiving him everything and sitting very quietly tucked in his arms like a sleepy little girl at Sunday morning mass.

When it's all over I go home and I sleep. I sleep for a very long time, fifteen or sixteen hours straight. Blissful, exhausted, dreamless sleep, and I don't make it to work the next day. The next day which is today. Dad calls me in the afternoon to make sure I'm okay, and I call Garret to apologize for not coming in, and he tells me to take all the time I need. All the time I need. So I do, I stay in bed until my cell phone rings at nine-thirty at night and I reach over to answer it.

"Cavanaugh." My voice is rough and gritty but still professional.

"Hello, love," comes the unmistakable English accent from the other end of the line. I know who it is automatically, but still he feels the need to add, "It's Nigel." As if every single one of my close friends just stepped off a flight from Heathrow Airport.

"I know," I say, feeling the corners of my mouth start to lift in a smile, my first of the day. "Are you in need of my professional opinion or something, Nige?"

A brief silence answers me and for a minute I wonder if I said something wrong, but as quickly as that fear possessed me, it's gone again when he speaks. "Actually, no," he replies with a sigh, and then his voice goes playfully mysterious, his range dipping down low in his best Boris Karloff impression. "I wondered if I might abduct you for the evening."

"Abduct me?" I echo, successfully amused. My smile widens even though I know he can't see it. "Is that so?"

"Ah so, Jordan-san." I bet if we were standing face to face he would steeple his palms together and bow. He probably does it anyway, just because he's Nigel. "Methinks you need a little adventure to take your mind off things, and personally I can't think of anything I'd rather do than escort you."

"Well, fancy that," I say, imitating his accent and his downright Shakesperean tone. "I can't think of anything I'd rather do than be escorted. So what shall we do with our stolen time, my good sir?"

"We shall frolic as two creatures of the night, my dear lady," he replies, without missing a beat. "And cast glamours upon whomever threatens our good fortune."

My laugh is grounded and brief; it breaks up the joke. "Do you have your bike?"

"Indeed I do, and an extra helmet for m'lady. Shall I pick you up? You always did enjoy a night ride."

And he's right, I did. I do; sometimes I let Nigel drive me home after work just because I love the way it feels on the back of that bike, the wind on my face and in my hair, the freedom of hurtling into space at high speeds, the warmth of the metal against my jeans. Most of all, the security of Nigel's body and how unafraid I am to ride behind him, how fun he makes it.

"I'll wait faithfully and answer the door for no one but you." I accept his offer in that blithe Victorian vernacular again, kicking the covers away from my body and standing from the bed. "What is our destination, my lord?"

"That, my dear girl, is a surprise. Dress accordingly."

"And just how does one dress for a surprise?" I inquire, smirking as I make my way to my closet.

"One wears the same jeans and t-shirt that one always wears, no matter what the time, date, or occasion," he retorts, and interrupts me before I can argue. "Oh, and bring me down some eyeliner, will you, love? I don't feel like stopping home first."

"Eyeliner?" I repeat him to make sure I heard right, but a dial tone answers me and I realize he hung up. I toss the phone on my bed with an absent shake of my head and a lopsided smirk. Crazy limey. Sometimes I think he says things just to drive me up the wall with frustration.

I look to my closed closet door and the full length-mirror embedded in it. Eyeliner. Without a doubt that's Nigel's way of letting me know we're headed to one of his crack-in-the-wall Goth clubs, and a little tremor of excitement runs through me at the prospect. A lot of people wouldn't know it now, just by looking at me and my casual, even bummy appearance - the Calvin Klein model jeans and the skinny-heeled boots, the flat-ironed mouse brown hair. But when I was a teenager I went to Nigel's kind of clubs all the time. It was the late '80s and alternative was new, and Goth was new, and punk was refined to a fucking art form, for Christ's sake, not like the teeny bopper brand of punk that's popular now. I had my blue hair first, and then it was cherry red, and then it was black. I wore the leather and the lace and the combat boots with buckles and ties, the plaid skirts and the dog collars and the corsets. I powdered my face stark white and listened to the Cure and danced like Cyndi Lauper and wrote bad poetry and tried every kind of nasty drug going. My favorite was ecstasy. It was new and hot and everyone was doing it. It made the slightest inkling of human contact feel sexual; something as simple as an accidental brush against the shoulder or fingertips touching each other as a beer bottle passed between two people. And it made the music flow through me as naturally as blood, and once it got into me I could dance all night. God, it seems like so long ago. But really, it wasn't. It wasn't so long ago that I can't remember there was a time when I was cool.

I've never really told anyone about all that. I know it, and Dad regrettably knows it. No one else. But Nigel, for some reason... he seems to know it, too. Probably because we both grew up in atmospheres like that, the urban club scene of the '80s, and even though we were each on opposite sides of the ocean it couldn't have been that much of a difference. A club is a club no matter where you go. But I don't know how exactly he seems to_ know_ about that part of me. Maybe he can see it in my face when he tells me about his weekend on Monday mornings at work, maybe he just looks at me and knows I miss it. But he's never invited me out with him before. Tonight is a first.

I gaze at my reflection with complete staid stoicism. There isn't much I can do to make myself look the part. Nigel has it easy, he's naturally gothic. He doesn't need a costume or even my borrowed eyeliner to fit in. He's... _beautiful_, in his way. Sometimes I look at him and see a man posed in an antique Victorian photograph, grayscale and full of romance and poetry and quiet, controlled authority. Something about him makes it easy for me to look at him for long intervals of time every now and then, just stare at him like I would stare at a gothic painting in a museum, or the most pristine, flawless white corpse laid out in front of me on a table just before I cut inside. Beautiful. Peaceful. There's something even _timeless_ about Nigel Townsend.

That realization paralyzes me and for whole entire minutes I just stand staring at my own reflection but not seeing it, just seeing Nigel in my mind's eye, Nigel at his computer or Nigel in the crypt or Nigel in my office doorway, afraid to come inside unless I ask him to.

Finally I open my closet door and I begin to rummage through the wreckage, but even as I do I still can't stop thinking about Nigel being timeless, and Nigel being beautiful, and it's like there's this sudden, powerful _need_ overtaking me to make myself kind of timeless tonight, too. I don't have a whole lot in my closet that would pass for alternative these days. I don't have buckles or corsets or lace anymore, and I threw all my plaid skirts away when I started med school. But what I do find, stashed away on a bent wire hanger at the very back of the closet, is a dress.

It's not a very extravagant dress. It doesn't have many layers, or lots of different kinds of fabric, and it isn't formal at all, not in the least. It's basically a tank dress, a sundress. I purchased it on the boardwalk in San Francisco when Tyler and I spent a summer there in a rented beach house a few years back. It wasn't the kind of dress I'd normally buy - the truth is I hadn't bought a dress in a decade and the last one had bondage straps on it - but there was something so incredibly beautiful about it that I was instantly filled with the clandestine urge to own it. I purchased it without Tyler knowing and I haven't worn it once, ever. I never even tried it on until tonight. Now I strip quickly, leaving my clothes strewn on the floor where I stand, and without even giving it a second thought, I unzip the back of the dress and step into it.

It's purple. My favourite color. A medieval dark eggplant, like pinot noir wine; the deepest, most intense purple I've ever seen. The material is nothing more than thinly spun rayon, made in India or Pakistan most likely. The ink on the tag faded away so I don't know for sure. The bodice has subtle embroidery and tiny fabric-covered buttons sewn in a neat line down the middle, and the skirt is drawn in at the waist but free at the hips, loose and flowing down past my knees. It looks all right, I think. It's kind of strange, in a way, like I'm not wearing the dress, but the dress is wearing me. I don't look like any kind of Jordan Cavanaugh that I'm used to. But maybe that's the idea. Maybe after all that's happened, I'm ready for something a little different.

On the closet floor, again towards the back, I stoop to retrieve a pair of short black Doc Martens that I wore a lot throughout the '90s and never could bring myself to throw out. They may not go exactly with the dress, but there's no way I'm going to walk into a goth club wearing flip-flop sandals. I close the closet door and study my reflection again. My hair is losing its straightness and beginning to curl, especially at the ends, but somehow it fits, so I leave it. If I was seventeen years old again I'd break out my Caboodles box and start caking on the makeup, but I'm not seventeen, and this is not 1986. So what I do is I go to my dresser and remove the requested liquid eyeliner from the tray in my top right hand drawer. I line the top eyelid on each side of my face like I always do and cap the tube, but I only have to hesitate for a moment before uncapping it again and lining the bottom lids as well, and then connecting both bottom and top with a tail, not as long as I would have made them twenty years ago, but definitely longer than I ever have since then.

Now my reflection offers me a kind of mish-mosh jigsaw puzzle Jordan. Pieces of the past and pieces of the present, pieces of the never-were and pieces of the yet-to-come. I take a moment to smile at it, and when this new Jordan smiles back at me, somehow it all comes together and I know that everything will be all right.

In a few minutes time, my cell phone rings again, and simultaneously I hear the weak, braying horn of a motorcycle honking outside my window. I turn away from my reflection to pick up the phone from the bed.

"Is that you?" I ask it, already beginning to exit the room.

"Aye, it's me, love," the English voice replies. "Have you got your dancing shoes on, then?"

"Sort of," I reply, my eyes darting down to the broken-in Docs. "Sit tight, Nige, and keep your motor running. I'll be out in two shakes of a lamb's tail."

Without waiting to hear his reaction to that, I flip the phone closed, staring at it and the tube of eyeliner in my other palm. It's definitely not necessary to carry around so much shit with me all night long, and so with a quick decision made, I abandon the phone to the counter in my kitchenette. Whether it's Dad with his secrets or Woody with his complications or Garret with a dead body waiting for me at a crime scene, I don't know anyone who would call me tonight with anything other than bad news.

I cross the main room to the front door and take my leather jacket from the hook. I only check to make sure my keys are in one of the pockets before I'm gone, vanished, off to paint the town red in a purple dress.


	7. I Think It's Not To Be

**London After Midnight**

**DISCLAIMER: **Word has it the site will be down on the 17th and 18th so I won't be able to update again until after that, but I promise to make the next chapter very worth your while.

**MANY THANKS:** Thank you **ShadowyFigure** for your compliments, thank you **Auron** for your continued praise, and a special thank you to **jtbwriter**, because it's nice to know that every once in a while even a Jordan and Woody fan can tolerate and appreciate a Jordan and Nigel fic.

**This chapter is dedicated to Watson1. Your review made me feel incredibly honored and humbled. May we all get our own Nigel in life and may we all crush a little bit of Woody's soul in doing so. Or something profound like that. :)**

**Chapter Seven**

**"I Think It's Not To Be"**

**Nigel**

_Two shakes of a lamb's tail_.

I can feel the blood rushing to my cheeks as I hang up the phone and replace it in my pocket. I've never heard Jordan use that phrase before. She must have overheard Bug and I as she was closing her office door the other day. I'm filled with shame and shock and curiosity at the thought - What other things has Jordan overheard throughout the years? What other things does she know that I didn't intend for her to find out?

I feel strangely like a young boy waiting for her outside her apartment building. My black jeans and leather jacket may as well be a parochial school uniform and my Harley may as well be a Schwinn ten-speed bicycle. I'm nervous and giddy, my stomach filled with butterflies, and I can't deny the thought that this is a bit different than all the other times Jordan and I have gone out together. I suppose because all the other times we were part of the general workplace crowd, or her father at least was chaperoning us. This time it's just she and I, the both of us alone, and somehow it keeps nagging at me that this feels undeniably like a first date.

But of course I'm being ridiculous. It was utter folly that I even called her up at all tonight, I intended very much to go straight home after work and watch the telly until bedtime. But we had just got in half a dozen victims of a freak automobile accident and I had spent the entire day working on them, cutting and probing and sewing back up, staring at blank faces and smelling death. I needed human contact, and not just the company of strangers. I needed Jordan. I always need Jordan, but especially tonight. I need her wit and her charm and her sarcasm, the sweet smell of her hair and the satisfied feeling of accomplishment that fills me after making her smile or laugh. The deep melodic sound of her voice and all the little plutonic touches that an evening out with Jordan promises to deliver; her hand on my shoulder or my fingers around her wrist. It was a bold and rash thing to do, calling and asking to borrow a few hours of her time, and I honestly don't know where I summoned the courage from. But now I'm glad I did. I'm glad. Because she accepted, and in just a few moments time we'll be off on our first little adventure, just Jordan and I.

_Pathetic bastard_, hisses a niggling voice from somewhere deep inside of me. _She doesn't love you. She'll never love you. You're wasting your time_.

"Oh bugger off," I whisper, staring down at the eerie translucence of my own fingernails against the vibrating metal of the bike. "I'll do what I bloody well please."

The loud slamming of a door jolts my body to attention and causes me to fully realize just how nervous I am. My head snaps up and my eyes instantly widen as they collide with the image of Jordan Cavanaugh hurrying down the walkway towards me, her hair curling and loose and swaying in rhythm with the leaves in the trees and the skirt of a long purple dress. I stand up straight, my heart pounding almost audibly.

"Love-" I attempt to call out to her, but I can't seem to find my voice; the word surfaces weakly. I attempt to disentangle myself from the bike but I kept the engine on as she requested and the tires leap forward a foot or so, nearly dragging me behind them. I grab a good hold on the handlebars and manage to shift into park successfully before I go too far, but as soon as I turn to step away from the bike, I trip over the curb and lose my footing. I'm flat on my face on the sidewalk before I even have time to process my own bumbling awkwardness, my eyes inches away from Jordan's boots. Broken-in black Doc Martens, almost exactly like the pair I'm wearing right now.

"Hello, love," I lift my chin to grin sheepishly up at her, my pulse racing, my entire face scorching hot. "It seems I've fallen for you."

She stoops lithely down to ground level and a shameful smile curves her lips, although she does manage to keep her laughter from surfacing. "Jeez, Nige, we haven't even started drinking yet," she quips, turning her palm up for me to take. "Clumsy limey," she adds, and warmth floods my body like bathwater at the softness of the insult, the almost affectionate quality to it.

"You look..." Never have there been two words in the English language that sounded more cliché than the ones which I have just uttered. "Scratch that, love. Suffice to say that purple is your color. Purple is _very, very much_ your color." I accept her hand but only squeeze it gently, using my own strength and momentum to pull myself up, and then I pull Jordan up as well, and we're standing so close together that I can feel her perfume permeate my clothes. I want to tangle my fingers in the roots of her hair, I want to slip her jacket from her shoulders and rub warmth into them with my hands instead.

"Did you bring the eyeliner?" It's all I can possibly trust myself to say, and even still my voice is breathless and hopeful, so much so that I'd be surprised if I didn't just betray all my feelings for her in that one simple question.

She doesn't answer me in words, just works her hand free from mine in order to reach into the depths of her leather jacket and produce a long black cylinder of the requested cosmetic.

"Gear," I proclaim it, a slang word I haven't used since I was a teenager and I could smack myself for being so bloody inarticulate tonight. I'm tempted to ask Jordan if I can run up to her flat and take a very fast, very cold shower before we leave. "All right, love, you'll have to draw it on for me because I haven't got a mirror handy. Come on."

I take her opposite hand in mine and lead her to the bike, sitting sideways in the seat so that she can better reach me. As she uncaps the tube, I take notice of the expertly precise job she did on her own eyes, and how it makes her seem as exotic as Theda Bara and as beautifully trashy as Nancy Vicious. When she leans forward, so close our noses almost touch, and she places the delicate tips of her fingers on my face, gently holding my right eyelid closed, I think I'll surely die. I pray to keep my life as I watch her with only my left eye, relishing in the coolness of her fingers and the paintbrush as it slides over my burning skin. I can't even think of anything to say to pass the time, my tongue is completely pasted down inside my mouth. And I know I'm being ridiculous, I'm being a categorical jackass. If I know anything from studying Jordan all these years, it's that she's not attracted to men like me. She's attracted to... well, assholes, really, the sort of men that barge in and take control and demand the attention of the entire room with their conventional good looks and their authoritative charm, and they talk the talk and they walk the walk and they sucker her in, and I don't know how. I've never understood why Jordan goes in for that sort. Sometimes I think it's like a joke to her, or perhaps a defense mechanism. If she carries on with those kinds of men, there isn't much of a chance she'll grow attached and end up hurt.

But how I wish... I wish I didn't have to wish.

She's finished with the other eye and she doesn't laugh or anything, so I suppose I don't look too stupid. Sometimes I wonder if I'm getting too old for this sort of thing. I don't want to be one of those fifty-five year old lecherous rockstar types still prancing about in makeup and queer clothing, totally convinced they're still somebody after all these years. But then I suppose at least they have that to cling to, the fact that they were somebody once. I was never anybody. I'm a nobody.

"Cheer up, Nige." Jordan's hand is still on my face but now she's cupping my cheek in her palm, stroking it slowly back and forth with her thumb. My incorrigibly negative inner monologue must be written plainly on my features because she smiles a bit apologetically and muses, "You look like someone just ran over your dog."

"Nonsense, love," I reply, forcing a warm smile to spread my lips. I bring my own hand up to cover hers, and with a sudden rush of courage I turn my head and kiss the center of her palm. "Jordan's just fine. The old girl's right here." I release her hand, then, and smile a bit wider. "Sorry about that sidecar, love, you'll have to wait until my next paycheck. Ah! But I do have..." I turn away from her with sudden determination and take the extra helmet from where it was draped over the left handlebar. I turn it so the top of the bowl faces Jordan, and cleverly point out the custom-painted union jack on its surface.

She laughs, as desired, and how I do love that laugh. Jordan laughs as though no one were listening, a full, unabashed laugh from deep inside of her, a laugh that betrays just how much she loves life, even though she may not readily admit it. She accepts the helmet and puts it on, buckling it under her chin, and I take my own from the other handlebar and fit it over my head, swinging one leg over the side of the bike and settling myself down in the driver's seat again. Jordan hops on a moment later, though not without some visible difficulty - she isn't used to maneuvering a dress, it seems - and then there are her arms, long and thin and curled around my waist.

I want that ride to last forever, I don't want to stop driving until we're out of state, I want to really abduct her, steal her away for a while to keep her as my own. But to do such a thing would be crazy and impossible, and I could never do it anyway. I would never want to be with Jordan unless she wanted it as well, just like no one could ever force Jordan to do something unless she was a willing accomplice. It wouldn't be right otherwise, it wouldn't be _real_. I want it to be real with Jordan. There have been times over the years at office parties and such that we both had a few too many drinks and something could have happened if we let it. But that would have been artificial and convenient, and that's why I've never acted on my feelings for her. I've waited this long and I can wait for the rest of our lives if I have to. Some might call me a coward and I suppose that's true. But I think it's far better to be a coward with Jordan than to pressure her, because pressuring Jordan only makes her push you farther away. At least if she never loves me then I can still stay close at hand. At least we will always be best friends.

We make it to the club in about fifteen minutes, not too grimy of a spot, but not as pretentious and trendy as some of the other clubs that have sprung up in Boston as of late, like the one Alistair Dark frequents. No, this place I'd say is just right, and does a pretty authentic job of resurrecting the essential oldschool atmosphere. It's small and it's dark and the music isn't too loud, and sometimes the DJ does break out the expected dry ice smog machine, but there aren't garish crucifixes or bloody red devils on the walls. It's just a modest little goth club with good drinks and better music, boasting an artsy sort of decor and overstuffed velour couches that feel like home.

I realize as we enter that my hand has somehow gotten wrapped up in Jordan's again, and whether I took hers or she took mine I can't remember, but here we are holding hands, and here I am leading her across the floor to one of the couches. But the truly shocking thing is that she doesn't let go, and so even as we're sitting side by side our hands are still folded together between us. I want to stroke the back of hers with my thumb but I'm afraid that if I took that liberty she'd surely pull away, so my fingers remain numb, limp as a wad of clay in her grasp. A cocktail waitress with an emerald green pixie cut drops by to take our order and to my amusement Jordan asks for a bottle of the house red, perhaps expecting it to be served in Wiccan chalices or something. Dear girl, but wouldn't that be lovely? The two of us sitting here like a lady and her lord, sipping wine from brass goblets. She certainly looks the part tonight; Jordan in a dress, and the same color as the very couch we're perched upon. I've never seen her clothed this way before, I wonder what possessed her...?

"So," she announces, turning to look at me and breaking up the silence in that certain Jordan way that lets me know she's about to say something deliberately cliché. "Come here often?"

I chuckle for her benefit, but internally I'm fighting down the urge to take my hand from hers and wrap my arm around her instead. Certainly she wouldn't like that; she'd wiggle and squirm and fight it like an alley cat unused to human affection. "Indeed I do, actually," I reply over the music, which is a tune by the Cure that I fancy quite a lot. _You, soft and only you, lost and lonely you, just like heaven_... "It's my favourite spot. It isn't like the other clubs. They play actual music; real, good music. And even though they play it fairly loud, it's... still quiet in here, in a way. There are places to sit and no one bothers you. Sometimes I suppose I just like to come in here to disappear for a while."

She's quiet for a moment. "That sounds nice," she decides, a bit wistfully. "Disappearing. I guess that's what I'm doing tonight."

The waitress comes by with our drinks, just a regular old bottle of cheap house plonk, and two plain short-stemmed wine glasses. Jordan's eyes don't betray any surprise or disappointment, but I do catch just a flash of an embarrassed smile that disappears as quickly as she believes she has tonight.

"Nonsense," I denounce her opinion, gingerly bringing her hand to my lips and kissing her knuckles briefly, just a peck. "We're doing it together, love. Just you and I and no one else can see us." She tilts her head slightly to look at me again, that same deep probing set to her eyes that frightened me a bit when we were standing in front of her brother's body. I wonder wildly if she caught some hidden meaning in my words, if she knows.

I clear my throat. "Let's have a drink, then," I suggest, breaking away from her hand finally to lean forward and lift our bottle of plonk from the marble coffee table. The cork has already been loosened by the barman so I simply pull it out, tilting the nozzle to the rim of each glass and filling them halfway with the dark red liquid. I hand one to her and hold mine up to indicate a toast. "To..."

"To disappearing," Jordan finishes, and taps her glass against mine. They make a little clinking sound as they come together, and then we each tilt our glasses to our lips to drain them. The wine is a bit harsh against my tongue, but it's a young red, thankfully, so it isn't dry or unpleasant. It burns at the pit of my stomach but that feeling soon gives way to serenity, the alcohol taking the edge off my nerves. I sink back against the couch and stretch my legs out, crossing one ankle over the other. And then with a wallop of boldness, I take up Jordan's hand again.

We sit quietly for a while, just listening to the music that the DJ spins, every so often one of us closing our eyes to meditate. To disappear, I suppose. We spend that first half hour disappearing. And then once we're sure we're safely tucked away, Jordan leans forward to pour us another drink and we get to talking again. We speak of our youth, of the Eighties and the music we once danced to, the drugs we tried, the clothes we wore. I tell her what English clubs were like and she tells me what American clubs were like, and we discover there weren't very many differences at all. Jordan tells me all the colors of her hair, and I picture them one by one, a little rainbow of Jordan, her memories reflecting all the many colors trapped inside of her still, having faded into grayscale by years of med school and hard work, torture and suffering and loneliness. And I long to comfort her, to tell her that I know her pain, that all my colors too have been muted by emptiness. It almost makes me giddy, in a way, knowing that she feels the same sadness that I do sometimes, the same hopeless desperation and the feeling that there's something more out there that I just can't seem to get my hands on. The feeling that there's something I've lost over the years, and the horrifying realization that I don't even remember what it is that I'm missing anymore.

We talk for an hour more, at least, gradually emptying the bottle. By midnight it's completely dry, and yet I don't feel the least bit drunk, not on anything but Jordan. I'm filled with fascination for her past and mine, and the way we're linked together by common experience, and in my rapt interest I discover I've drawn closer to her on the couch, that we sit on the same cushion now because there is another couple next to us. The place has filled up a bit and has gotten noisier, and most importantly of all, my arm is around Jordan's shoulders, my thumb stroking the little indentation of her elbow, her body turned halfway against my chest.

"_Good evening and good morrow, my fellow brethren of the night._" The deep, soothing voice of the DJ cuts into our conversation, causing us both to look up because he hasn't stopped spinning to speak all night. The dance floor is scattered with couples and groups of friends taking a breather between songs. "_The time is 12:01 AM and at this point I'd like to invite you all onto the floor for our usual midnight waltz. Tonight the accompaniment will be a little tune known as Sally's Song, from the modest Tim Burton masterpiece A Nightmare Before Christmas, as interpreted by the legendary indie goth band London After Midnight. Blessed be._"

The couples on the floor ready themselves, the more dominant of the two holding out upturned palms for the other to take as regally as attendants of a Renaissance ball. The request burns my lips but I'm not nearly drunk enough to ask; I couldn't even stutter it out if I tried. Jordan shifts beside me and uses the arm of the sofa to pull herself up to a stand. I assume at first that she's just off to use the loo, but then her slender body swivels round and she outstretches one long forearm, her palm upturned, a smile dancing on her features as blithely as the lights and the smog from the dry ice machine dance behind her, encapsulating her in shadow and silhouette.

"Come on, Nige," she prompts me, her voice seeming something like a whisper in a dream, her touch a puff of smoke barely tangible but undeniably real as I accept her hand and our fingers intertwine. "Before the song starts. Come on."

I pull myself up, completely in awe of her. Jordan Cavanaugh has asked me to dance and I am struck with the sensation of being but a grammar student again at a spring cotillion, pulled out of my wallflower state by the most beautiful girl in school. We stand face to face on the floor and her free hand goes to my shoulder, switching the lead into my possession. I place my unoccupied hand on the drawn waist of her dress, taken aback by the surprising softness of it.

"I've never waltzed before," she confesses, her voice having that same dreamy quality to it. The smog rises thickly up around our figures and the song begins, and I think that I will remember the lyrics intimately by heart for the rest of my life.

_I sense there's something in the wind_

_That feels like tragedy's at hand_

_And though I'd like to stand by you_

_Can't shake this feeling that I have._

_The worst is just around the bend._

_And does she notice_

_My feelings for her?_

_And can't she see_

_How much she means to me?_

_I think it's not to be._

_What will become of my dear friend?_

_Where will her actions lead us then?_

_Although I'd like to join the crowd_

_In their enthusiastic cloud_

_Try as I may it doesn't last._

_And will we ever_

_End up together?_

_No, I think not._

_It's never to become_

_For I am not the one._

We waltz not only as though we've never waltzed before, but as though we'll never waltz again for the remainder of our lives. The dance itself starts off as chaste, our bodies held at arms-length, our steps timed and choreographed with the precision that only two amateurs can truly pull off. I don't turn her or twirl her or pull her in close, our scuffed Doc Martens never deviating from the classic form of the dance. But our gazes are tightly focused on one another, and I realize somewhere in the midst of that minute and fifty two seconds that Jordan and I have the exact same color eyes, a cryptic hazel that is brown on some days and green on others, and gold in the light.

The song and the waltz invariably end, and somewhere in the realm of reality I can hear the DJ thanking everyone for dancing, that the midnight waltz is a staple of the club and it is performed every night. I feel the floor clear out slightly, only certain couples staying on for another dance. I hear the song change to another Cure number, a quicker one, a louder one. I am aware of all of this and yet I pay no attention to any of it because Jordan and I are pressed close together now, my brow falling down to rest against hers as though a product of sheer gravitational force. Somewhere I am aware of the heavy vicious thumping of my own heart and the quickened pace of my breathing and both of Jordan's hands on my neck, the contrast of her arctic fingers against my blistering skin.

"Love," I whisper, the word reverberating softly in my brain. There are things I feel I need to tell her, right now, post-haste and without delay. Important things she needs to know, things I've kept bottled up for longer than I can remember. Long and detailed speeches I swore I'd recite for her if this day ever dawned. But for now, right now, the only word I can find on my lips is the simplest summary for everything that's trapped inside my own heart. "Love."

"Nige," I hear her say, feel her breath against my lips. "Nigel, God, what's wrong with me..." I don't understand what she means. I don't have time to find out. The wine, it seems, has gotten to us both after all. I succumb willingly to the sudden, urgent pull of her hands and then our lips have crashed together, softly at first and then desperate and hungry. My mind escapes me, running around in hysterically exuberant circles, as naturally blissful as a child on his birthday. I feel her mouth open and her tongue seek out mine, then it slides against the inside of my cheek, causing every hair on the back of my neck to stand straight up at attention and a surge of desire to run through me like nothing I've ever experienced before.

The earthshattering realization hits me like a blow to the back of the head. I am standing here on this crowded dance floor and I am kissing Jordan Cavanaugh to _Friday I'm In Love_, and wonder of all wonders, she is actually kissing me back, full-force, and holding me to her with both hands. This is it for me; I'm lost, I've been vaporized, I'm completely and totally hers. Even if she were to pull away right now and decide she no longer wanted me, some small part of me would always remain in her possession until the day I took my last breath.

I don't want to push her, or crush her, or scare her away from me. It's very important that I handle this situation with the utmost tenderness and care. I realize that my arms have been slack at my sides for quite some time, and so now I bring them up to the subtle curve of her hips, accentuated by the bodice of her dress. She's so skinny, my little beanpole Jordan, just like me. I could probably encircle her entire waist in both hands if I wanted, touching thumb to thumb and middle finger to middle finger. So delicate and fragile, and yet incredibly not so; the strongest, most capable woman I've ever known. She could thrash me within an inch of my life if I let her, she could make me wish I'd never been born. There have been times throughout the years when I've been tempted to drive her to do just that, because it would have at least proved that she knew I existed. All of those years of torturous anticipation are forgotten now, tossed into the fireplace, completely annihilated with a simple flick of my wrist. I bring both hands to either side of her face, cupping her flushed cheeks, long spidery fingers spread out over each of her little ears as she kisses me, kisses me still. I don't trust my knees to hold me anymore, any moment now they will weaken and buckle and turn to tomato soup and I will be not but a puddle on the floor.

I could kiss her forever but she does pull away, eventually she does, and stares up at me in a bewildered mixture of fear and surprise and amusement and... and lust, yes, I do see lust, and it nearly prompts me to hoist her up over my shoulder and carry her out to the bike. Of course I don't, because lanky and hulking as I am, I don't feel like much more than a field mouse right now, trapped in the dual hazel spotlights of Jordan's eyes.

"Jordan... love, I... I..." I feel like I'm obligated to speak and yet nothing seems profound enough to say. "I should say something. I mean... what I mean is I should tell you something. There's something I _very much need_ to say to you..."

"_No_," she firmly interrupts, and I catch a hint of pleading in her voice. "Look, just... don't say it right now, okay? We should be somewhere else. This is fast. This is just really fast, Nigel. We need to cool off. We need to go somewhere else. I need fresh air. We both really need fresh air right now. We need to go outside." Her features are taking on a panicked expression, as though she'll laugh or cry or scream at any given moment. My stomach becomes queasy with dread and all I want is to wrap her up in my arms and beg her not to freak out on me, that I'll be good to her, I'll be so good to her and I'll love her... that I already love her...

But I can't. I can't. I'm terrified. I'm emasculated. While we were embracing, time seemed to stand still, and now that we're apart again it's racing to catch up with the clock. I nod hysterically, turning to take our jackets from the couch and then lumbering over to our waitress. I find a couple of twenties in my back pocket and nearly shove them at her, not caring if it's too much or even not enough.

Fresh air is what Jordan wanted and it hits me like a slap in the face along with fat, heavy sheets of pouring rain as they fall down to Earth. I'm too distressed to even remember to hold the door open for her, I hear her palms slap up against the wood to keep it from knocking her backwards, and then she's calling my name.

"Nigel... Nigel!" I keep walking at a steady pace to the end of the block where my bike is parked. She wanted fresh air and now she has it, she wanted to cool off and Mother Nature has decided to give us our very own cold shower. What more does she want from me? "_Nigel!!_"

I spin around as abruptly as I had started my flight from her, intending to shout, to scream, to hurl curses at her and damn her for fucking with my head for so many years even though she didn't know it, for finally kissing me and then asking for air as though I had sucked it all out of her with cruel brutal force. But when I open my mouth to do this, the only phrase that surfaces is a savage, animalistic, "_Christ on a bleeding moped, I love you, Jordan!_"

It sounds ridiculous even to my own ears, but it springs to life so loudly that it competes with the sudden uproarious thunder and lightning illuminating the sky. The rain pours down harder, soaking through my hair, Jordan's hair, the purple dress. The combined force of the elements and my sordid confession seems to send her reeling back a noticeable step, and then another. She does laugh then, just once, as out of place and emotional as it had been at her brother's funeral when I explained why I was late. Her thin brows are arched upward, afraid and incredulous, and her cheeks are a deep scarlet. I've never seen Jordan blush before. Her eyes are as wide as the eyes of the proverbial deer in the headlights.

"What did you say?" she exclaims, even though every syllable screams the exact opposite at me - _I know exactly what you said, Nigel Townsend, I know exactly what you just said_.

"_Fuck!_" I add wildly, realizing with a powerful shock that the cat is out of the bag now and there is no turning back, no way of righting this and returning to normal, no way of laughing it off as though it were some big joke. My voice is exhausted when I reply. "I don't know, love. I don't know what I've said."

"Yes, you do," she insists, replacing the two steps she undid not thirty seconds ago, and adding more to them besides. She's not quite close enough to touch me yet. I shrink backwards, though I don't know why. In some bizarre twist of fate, it's gone from me pursuing Jordan to Jordan pursuing me, at least in the physical sense. "Just say it, Nige. Just tell me." Her voice is coaxing and even-tempered and actually a bit annoying, because this situation is anything but even and anything but fair. "Tell me what you said."

She takes another step forward and I take another step back. "I don't see why I should when I've already said it," I reply, almost bitterly. "I've said it already, Jordan. You don't listen to me. You never, ever listen to me, love. If you'd ever listened once, just once in the decade you've known me, then you'd already know what I've said. You'd have known it for a very long time, far before the words ever passed my lips."

"You _love _me." I hate the way she says it, through a mocking smile and with an amused tone, accusing me of it as though it were an embarrassing habit like wetting the bed. "You _love_ me, Nigel, that's what you said."

"Yes!" I cry, exasperated, retracing my steps just as she had done so that we both meet in the middle. "That's what I said, Jordan, I'm in love with you. Are you quite happy? No, wait, you can't possibly be, because loving you is a horrible curse, isn't it? The instant a man falls for you, you've written him off your dance card for life, haven't you? So go on, then, love. Tell me I'm a fool. Tell me you don't love me, that you couldn't ever fathom loving me. Tell me the words I've been waiting to hear from the very first moment I met you. Quickly, love. Get it over with so that I can go back to my computers and my trivia and my odd duck roommate with the two cats. Tell me you don't love me so that I can resign myself to being Nigel Townsend for the rest of my life, a queer sort of fellow always good for a few laughs but never good enough to get the girl."

I can't go on. I shut my mouth and hold my breath and wait for her reply as the rainwater streams down my cheeks like teardrops.

---

To Be Continued... How's that for a cliffhanger? :)


	8. An Entire United Nations of Emotions

**London After Midnight**

**DISCLAIMER: **AAAAIIIEEEEEE!! Jeez!! dodges rotten tomatoes Sorry about the cliffhanger, all right? Thoroughly sorry!! I'll never do that to you again, I promise!!

**MANY THANKS: **Wow. Wow wow wow. I literally couldn't ask for more where feedback is concerned. I never thought I'd get a single positive review. You're all so awesome and I love every last one of you. Thank you **canadianfan** and **Upside** for your compliments, thank you to the lovely **Nikki**, many MANY thanks to **NCCJFAN** who has all but completely restored my optimism in converting J&W fans (guess it isn't impossible after all), and of course thank you to my favourite person in the whole world **Watson** for your continued praise which means so much to me. I love soppy Englishmen as well.

I hope this chapter lives up to the last.

**Chapter Eight**

**"An Entire United Nations of Emotions"**

**Jordan**

He _loves_ me.

I have known Nigel Townsend for the last ten years of my life. We didn't spend every waking moment together, but somehow we always ended up that way. Together. On a case or in a meeting, in my office or on his bike. Together in an opinion or a conspiracy theory or the appreciation of the same rock bands. Some nights we'd be the only ones alone in the morgue, the both of us as empty and as apathetic as the corpses that filled the crypt.

I probably could have been a better friend to Nigel. I shouldn't have worried him as much as I did, or kept him out of the loop for as long as I did, or made fun of him like I sometimes did. I know that there were times I took advantage of him, of his talents and his intelligence and his strange fondness for me, a thing I could never wrap my head around. I always knew Nigel liked me, even though I never understood why. I even figured that he was kind of attracted to me, because in my experience, man only does for woman if he thinks there's a chance she'll sleep with him.

But _love_ me? No. I can honestly say that_ I never knew _Nigel was in love with me. The thought never even entered my mind. He's always been so quiet about it, playing this inexhaustible role of the perfect plutonic guy friend... I mean Christ, for the first three years we knew each other, I even thought he was gay. I can't count how many times I've laid the details of a one-night stand on him or complained about my inability to retain a functional relationship. And oh God, Tyler... when Tyler visited and that fucking awful dinner party... that whole fucking awful chapter of my romantic life. Did Nigel still love me even through all of _that?_

I'm not just embarrassed. I'm _mortified_, standing here soaking wet in this rainstorm outside the club, our club, the place we just disappeared in for the last couple of hours, the place in which we had our first waltz and our first kiss. The memory of it makes my face feel like it's going to burst into flames. The gentle softness of Nigel's lips and the meek, unthreatening gestures of Nigel's tongue, Nigel's hands on my waist and in my hair, the Cure in the background. Oh God, oh my God... _I_ kissed _him_. I kissed Nigel. I kissed him as though in finality of something, the long-awaited completion of an extremely desired task. I _wanted_ to kiss Nigel. All night. And not just tonight. Not just tonight...

_What's wrong with me_, I whispered aloud before I pulled his mouth to mine. But not,_ What's wrong with me tonight?_ Or, _What's wrong with me that I want to kiss you?_ No, nothing like that. I think I meant it more like, _What's been wrong with me these past ten years that it never occurred to me to do this before?_

And now that one simple gesture has set off an irreversible chain of emotions that I don't think we'll ever be able to recover from, but I'm not even sure that I want to. The truth is I kind of like the way this feels, standing out in the rain, freezing and wet, my eyeliner running, my leather jacket bunched up in both of my hands. Nigel Townsend stands less than a foot away, and his eyeliner is running too, and his words are kind of like the rain somehow, wistful and honest and cleansing, baptizing me with their soothing truth and that immaculate contrast of cynicism and innocence that makes Nigel who he is.

I like the things he's saying to me. I like what he's confessing to. I even kind of like the way he chooses to scrutinize all of my past relationships and my behavior where love is concerned, because it's so true, and at the same time so completely untrue. Nigel, you crazy limey fuck, you know me so well but you don't know me at all. I don't always run from love. I'm not running from you. No, I'm definitely not running from you at all.

Why does he think I'll break his heart? Why is he so convinced of that? Because I rejected Woody Hoyt? Looking at him now I know that must be why. For the past three years he's watched the game of chess I played with Woody from the sidelines, cheering for a stalemate and I never even noticed. How could I not have noticed? Was I really so preoccupied with Woody that I couldn't even see what had been right in front of me for so many years before? Maybe that's why Nigel has no faith in me. It's not because I rejected Woody, it's because without even realizing it I rejected Nigel, and many times at that. Continuously.

I never meant to. I never wanted to hurt Nigel, I _could_ never hurt Nigel. He's so gentle and unselfish and compassionate. To consciously hurt him would be wrong, a sadistic crime, because I know he'd never hurt me. I mean, Christ, the only times he's ever said no to something I requested of him were the times he thought I'd get hurt in the process. He loves me, of course he does, and the fact that I never saw that makes me feel like the biggest asshole in the world. I hurt him, yes. By not noticing, not paying attention, not _listening_. I never did really listen to him. He's right.

But now I know. Now I know, and just being fully aware of being loved by someone like Nigel Townsend - no, being loved by Nigel Townsend _specifically_ - fills me with so much warmth that my whole body blossoms with goosebumps and I know it's not from the cold and I know it's not from the rain. It's a special kind of love, I know this right away. It's special because it's been kept secret for such a long time, it's special because in his mind it came with such high stakes. It's special because he never pushed me or nagged me or complained. It's special because he only revealed it when I acted on it first. It's special because he is a much better person than I am, and I respect him so tremendously, and I don't deserve his feelings, not at all, but I will welcome them with opened arms.

"Nigel," I say. I want to tell him all of this, everything I think and everything I feel. But I can't. I'm not good with words, I'm not good at this, I've never really known anything like this before. So all that I can do is sigh, and it's a sigh not of defeat exactly, but of content and willing submission, and as I do it I step forward to annihilate the empty space between us. Lowering my wet brow to his wet shirt, I drop my leather jacket to the sidewalk in order to wrap both arms around his soggy frame. "_Nigel_," I say it again though I don't know why, my voice brimming with respect and adoration and joy. My arms constrict, squeezing him tightly, and I bury my features against his sweater, feeling the material divest itself of its moisture as though I had just pressed a sponge to my face.

I don't feel a physical response from him at first, and I wonder if I shocked him into paralysis. But then his arms go around me, too, and tighten, and I feel his head bowed against the top of mine, the soft cartilage of his nose pressed into my hair.

"I'm so afraid of you, love." His voice isn't much louder than a whisper, especially underneath the rumbling of the thunder in the sky and the crash of the rain against the sidewalk, and it kind of reverberates, like it would in a dream.

"Crazy limey," I scold him without heat, turning my face to the side so he can hear me. I'm surprised to discover that my voice, too, sounds dream-like. "There's nothing to be scared of."

I'm attracted to him. I realize that now. It's a thought so completely unplanned that it takes me by surprise, because I never actually put it in such blunt terms to myself before. I've always thought that Nigel is beautiful, that his features are soft and friendly and uniquely, unconventionally handsome, that his body is long and thin and pale and sexual, and his accent is sexual, and even the way he moves is sexual because he doesn't overtly try to _make it_ sexual, like so many other men I've known before, Detective Woody Hoyt included. No, even when Nigel is having one of those days where every move he makes is awkward or clumsy or goofy, he's still so extremely, incredibly sexual, at least to me, simply because he doesn't even realize it.

I've always known all of this, but I always kind of saw it as like a general opinion, that in a theoretical way everyone thought those things about Nigel, or rather that everyone thought those things about everyone at some point or another. I never really applied it to just me, or thought that it was a deeply personal, intimate feeling that only I had, and only about Nigel Townsend.

But it was, oh God, it definitely was. And is. Standing here so close to him, my entire body pressed to his, the rain enhancing the scent of his cologne... I want him. I want Nigel. I wanted him when I kissed him in the club and I want him now and I've wanted him for a really long time, and now that I realize it, it all culminates into this incredible wave of desire for him, a living, breathing _need_.

"I don't want to just be friends anymore, Jordan," I hear him whisper. I separate myself from him enough to look into his eyes, and I find latent shame and distress there. I reach up with five fingers to gently wipe away the smeared makeup forming dark circles underneath his eyes. I know I must look the same way, maybe even worse because of the way I buried myself in his wet sweater, but for some reason I don't feel embarrassed at all.

"I don't, either," I softly reply, trying to make my voice sound soothing and unthreatening despite the accusatory nature of my words. I don't want him to be afraid of me anymore. "Oh God, Nige, you're such an asshole. How could you think I'd want to break your heart? How could you think I'd ever do that to you? Do you really think I'd have come out with you tonight if I didn't like you? I do, I like you so much, more than anyone. I think you're so beautiful, and different, and you don't care what people think of you and I respect that so much. Don't be afraid of me, Nigel. Don't be upset. I came out with you tonight for a reason, there's a reason I dressed like this and asked you to dance with me and kissed you. I could never break your heart, Nigel. I love that you love me. And I want to be with you. I think I've probably wanted that for a long time. While I was getting dressed tonight I couldn't stop thinking about you and how beautiful you are, and all I wanted was for you to think I was beautiful, too."

"I do, love!" he exclaims through a jubilant laugh that is louder than the rain, a smile stretching wide across his features. Both of his hands go to either side of my face, cupping my cheeks protectively. His palms are wet but warm, he strokes my temples with his thumbs and causes a shiver to roll down my spine. "I always think you're beautiful. Every day. And brave, and sensitive. All of the things that make you my dear girl. I'm so in love with you, Jordan. I'm so in love with you that when I see you in the mornings, I feel faint. I'm so in love with you that sometimes I just want to spit at you or strike you because you make me so crazy and so frustrated and it's terrible of me to think those things, I know, but I can't help it. It's been such hell trying to hide this from you. I probably should have told you sooner, years ago. Before Woodrow... I mean... I wanted very much to tell you but things happened, didn't they, between you and he? He just sort of took over, and there wasn't anything I could do about it. I didn't feel like it was my place anymore. To love you."

"Nigel, nothing happened!" I cry. I want to put Woody out of his mind as fast as I possibly can, I want to banish him to some forgotten corner of my subconscious and never think or speak of him ever again. I know that things changed after I met Woody, I know that suddenly my time with Nigel was cut in half and I got distracted, I did, he saved my life in Los Angeles and I allowed myself to get distracted with him. I wish I didn't. I didn't know how badly I hurt Nigel's feelings by doing it, I never meant to. "Nothing happened between us. I never... I never slept with him, or anything. I never wanted to sleep with him. We're just friends, that's all, and sometimes not even that much. Woody isn't like you, Nigel. He isn't patient. He didn't wait. He tried to rush me, he was always trying to rush me. But I didn't want him. I like Woody, I even love him in a way I guess, like how I love my Dad. He saved my life once and I owe a lot to him. But not _that_. I don't want Woody. I want _you_."

The astonishment I feel at my own words is physically represented on Nigel's face, in spades. His eyes are wide, his brows raised, his cheeks full of more color than I ever thought it possible for my ghostly pale Nigel to achieve. His smile fades but not completely, and then grows wider than before.

"Is that so?" he asks, sounding dumbfounded and more than a little bewildered. "Do you want me, Jordan?"

I'm smiling too, now, from shyness and the vocalization of desire. I'm probably even blushing, a rare feat for me. "Yeah," I confess, my voice hushed and calm. "I do, Nige. Of course I want you."

His hands slip a little lower, cupping my jaw instead, his thumbs plucking up my chin. "Shall I kiss you then, love?"

I withdraw my own hands from his face and wrap them around his wrists, stroking the smooth, wet skin there with my fingers for encouragement. "You don't need to ask me first," I reply.

It's a very nice kiss. It isn't rushed or frantic like how the first was. We take our time and linger at each other's lips, our tongues playing intricate games together. Every so often Nigel breaks away to kiss my chin or the tip of my nose, and I smile and he smiles and our mouths return to each other again. It's still pouring all around us and sometimes people hurry past, smart people with umbrellas whose jackets are covering their bodies and not draped along the sidewalk. But I hardly feel the cold or the rain anymore, because Nigel's breath is hot and his hands are warm and his mouth tastes like red wine. My whole body is stifling and all I really want to do is take my dress off, and his sweater besides. I wish we were indoors, I wish we were in bed.

"Come home with me," I murmur against his lips. "Or take me to your apartment."

"It'll be better at your place, love," he replies, unwilling to stop kissing me long enough to speak articulately. He doesn't ask me if I'm sure a half a dozen times and I like that, I like that so much. "No one will be there to bother us. I've got a roommate."

"I've got a telephone," I remind him, noticing that the speed of our contact is increasing, and my breathing is growing harder. I can hear Nigel, too, gasping for air between kisses and words. "Two of them, actually, and they both have a really nasty habit of ringing at all the wrong times."

"We'll toss them over the fire escape, then," he suggests, and without warning tilts his head and opens his mouth against my neck. A whimper passes my lips as he sets his teeth against the skin, but he quickly soothes the bite with his tongue at the sound. "Did I hurt you, love?"

"_No_," I cry. "No. Jesus, Nigel, we can't just do this out on the street."

"And why is that?" he retorts cheekily, picking another patch of skin to nibble on. My second whimper is hidden in a windfall of nervous laughter.

"Because we're successfully becoming two of those people who like to neck in public," I announce, pushing both palms against his chest in an attempt to pry him away. "And we hate those people. Don't we?"

"Oh, I don't know, love," he murmurs, moving his hands to my waist and pulling himself closer against my struggle to break free. His attentions move to my earlobe and the little patch of skin just behind it, and it tickles, and I can't help but squeal. Nigel speaks louder so he can be heard over it. "I sort of respect those types of people! They've got a lot of self-confidence!" He doesn't let up on my ear, and even takes his torture to the next level by digging his fingers into my ribs and beginning to tickle me mercilessly, all the while shouting louder and louder over my squealing protests. "You shouldn't be wary of the physical representation of affection, Jordan! _There's something to be said, after all, for two people who are completely unafraid to show the world how very much in love they really are!!_"

"Nigel _Nigel NIGEL GET OFF ME!!!_" I scream, my own laughter threatening to burst my stomach open. I try to twist out of his grasp but only succeed in turning around and giving him a better angle to stab his fingers into my waist. The involuntary spasms of laughter continue until I feel like I have no strength left at all, and then I sink down to the pavement, burying myself against our jackets in the ultimate surrender. "No more," I plead. "Cease and desist."

Instantly I feel his arms around my waist again, hoisting me up off the sidewalk. I take our jackets with me. "All right, love, I'm sorry," he apologizes, cradling my back against his front and leaning forwards to rest his chin on my shoulder. "That was terribly cruel of me. But I think I've got a way I can make it up to you. What would you say to spending the rest of the evening in a slightly cozy, extremely inexpensive, roommate-and-telephone-free motel room? Now before you say anything, I realize the very thought does seem quite torrid and seedy, but it doesn't have to be that way if we don't want it to be. We can just think of it as... well, as refuge, I suppose. A little safehaven where no one will disturb us. Yes?"

Refuge. Actually, it's the perfect word, and at the mention of a cozy room my body remembers how fucking cold it is out here and begins shivering almost on cue. I know that there's a motel about a half a mile up the street because I noticed it as we passed on our way to the club. It might be nice to curl up with Nigel on a foreign bed, one that isn't mine or his so neither of us will feel out of place. We can take all our clothes off and dry them under the heat lamp in the bathroom. Oh God. Just the thought of our wet clothes hanging over the shower stall makes me realize what's really about to happen tonight. The same fluttering of excitement that overtook me when I realized where we were going tonight starts up again. It's been a long time for me. A long, long time. Two years. I wonder how long it's been for Nigel. Oh God, Nigel... it's going to be with Nigel. An entire United Nations of emotions washes over me, each with a different origin. Fright and hysteria and embarrassment and comfort and irony and affection and lust, most of all lust, and somehow that neutralizes everything else.

"Yes," I agree, slipping my bare arms into the sleeves of my jacket. It's just as wet as my skin is, but the extra layer provides a decent amount of warmth. "Refuge. That sounds good, Nige. Really good. Let's do that." I separate from him without having to put up a struggle this time, but after he puts his jacket on, he throws his arm around my shoulders just the same. I slip my hand casually inside the soggy back pocket of his jeans and it's like this that we finally continue on down the block to his motorcycle, still slightly dazed by the startling new discovery of what's just happened and curious about all of what is yet to come.


	9. Always Jack and Sally, Never Hugh and El...

**London After Midnight**

**DISCLAIMER:**Aaahhh... **Nikki** got me all freaked out about needing conflict now LOL, because I realized I don't have any planned yet, which is why this chapter took me a little longer than usual. I was spooked. I don't have any good ideas for conflict so feel free to lay suggestions on me. Personally I think it's still a bit too early for more bad stuff anyway. Let's all bask in the Jordan and Nigel goodness until I come up with some juicy conflict to mess around with. :)

**RATING CHANGE:** Yes, we have finally made the big rating leap from PG-13 to R. If sexual situations upset you then please keep walking and pretend you never stopped to look.

**MANY THANKS: **To **Aesear**, for using the phrase "beautiful twistings of words" which I thought was a beautiful twisting of words in and of itself. Thank you **HSchuler**, I can't believe your first kiss was to _Friday I'm In Love_. How psychic of me. I think that's really cool. Thank you **jtbwriter** for pointing out that my Jordan and Nigel do not hem and haw over what should or should not be for about eighty chapters before finally laying it all out on the table, lol. I very much do not like when people (even television writers) have characters completely unable to make a decision for themselves. It's very unrealistic... like, do it or don't. That's just my opinion. I could talk all day about that, specifically in terms of Jordan and Woody and their lame will-they, won't-they chess game on the show, but I won't bore anyone right now. :) And thank you **canadianfan** for tolerating and appreciating a Jordan and Nigel pairing. I so agree that Nigel needs a little love. And I'd so much rather see him with Jordan than some newbie character created as a love interest for him, because chances are if the writers ever brought someone on like that, they'd totally and completely miss the mark.

**Chapter Nine**

**"Always Jack and Sally, Never Hugh and Elizabeth"**

**Nigel**

The motel room costs thirty dollars to rent, and I hand it over, glad I brought extra cash with me tonight. On the registry, we sign our names as Jack and Sally Skellington, and obviously the clerk has never seen _A Nightmare Before Christmas_, because she simply hands us our room key and directs us to the lift without even asking for ID.

It's a dive, really. A wretched, awful place, but Jordan and I ride the lift with silent smiles on our faces, our clothes and hair still soaked through from the storm that didn't let up even on the ride here. I drove excruciatingly slow and took turns like an old man in a motorized wheelchair as the rain fell in slanted sheets all around us. It was all in the interest of safety, of course, because of the rain and the quite serious threat of DUI, although admittedly I did enjoy having both of Jordan's twiggy arms wrapped around my waist and perhaps that contributed to me taking my time as well. She held onto me differently than she had when I picked her up at her flat, I don't know how exactly, more deliberately perhaps. Tighter. And she pressed her cheek between my shoulderblades, her front lined up with my back.

The room itself is ugly. The walls are beige and the carpet is a dirty, grubby gray, and the comforter on the bed looks almost... _tepid_, if it's possible for bedspread to look tepid. It's the only word I could use to describe it, a halfhearted striped pattern of brown and hunter green. But it's a bed, at least, and a rather large bed at that. Jordan hurries into the room and tosses her jacket on an aluminum folding chair set in the corner without the accompaniment of a table, giving the general appearance that the last inhabitant either stole the table or arrived with the chair as part of his luggage and simply decided he didn't need it anymore.

She takes off her boots too, and chucks them at random, not bothering to watch where they land. Then she goes barefoot around the room as comfortably as though it were her own, opening the blinds to see if our view is of the parking lot on the left side of the motel or the dumpster behind the Spanish restaurant on the right.

"I can see your bike." She nods at the glass, satisfied, and closes the blinds again before rounding the bed to the nightstand and pulling out the drawer to check for the Bible. "Now what if I was Buddhist?" she asks rhetorically, but I know she doesn't really care if the Bible is there or not. It's probably something she's said in every hotel room she's ever stayed in, even if it was by herself.

She's in the bathroom then, and I hear her fumbling around with things. "Shampoo. No conditioner. No mouthwash. Bar soap. One towel. Nigel, I'm taking my bra off."

"Sweet shag all," I murmur, a little protest of disbelief. Jordan Cavanaugh is taking her bra off and I haven't even passed over the threshold yet. "I... ah... That's nice, love. Do you need help at all?"

I hear her snort in response, a little amused laugh. "No, I think I have it..." Her voice trails off and then she emerges, still wearing her dress but short one brassiere. I try not to look anywhere but at her lovely face, marred only by the foggy clouds of makeup just beneath each eye. "...Under control. Close the door." She reaches out for one of my hands and gives it a gentle, albeit impatient, tug. "Come in, Nige, stop waiting for written invitations."

Her courage astonishes me, as it so often does. My brave dear girl. She doesn't want me to be afraid of her anymore, but I'm so terrified right now I'm nearly shaking, all of my confidence dripping onto the carpet like the rainwater that drips from my clothes. What if I'm not good enough? What if I don't thrill her? What if she changes her mind in the middle of it all? I've been waiting for this moment for so very long, building up to it in my own head. I was always so sure that I would say all the right things and do everything well, that every word and touch and movement would be smooth and natural and passionate without my even having to try very hard to make them so. But right now Jordan is so strikingly beautiful and so incredibly brave and so... so unexpectedly _in control_ that I feel like a lumbering, bumbling teenager standing next to her. My tongue is pasted down in my mouth and I am putty in her hands. I want to touch her but perhaps I should speak first. I want to tell her things but perhaps I should touch her first.

"Hey, Nige." Without much warning she snaps her fingers a few times in front of my face and my focus quickly adjusts. I stop staring through her and resume staring _at_ her, and in this moment of lapsed attention my eyes sink down to where I did not look before. "You're not getting shy on me, are you?"

I can see the outline of her nipples just beneath her soaked through dress. "What? No. No, love, I'm not shy." Bollocks, Townsend. If you weren't shy, you'd have her half-naked underneath the covers already.

"I don't believe you," Jordan retorts, as if she can read my bloody mind. "I think I make you nervous." She gives my hand another tug and I stumble a bit in my quest to get closer to her. She uses that awkwardness as an advantage, spinning me round almost like it was an extension of our waltz from earlier. The backs of my knees knock against the mattress and I fall down to a sit at the edge of the bed.

"I'm n-not nervous." A boldfaced lie. My tongue feels more than ever like it's covered in paste.

"You are." I swear to bleeding Christ it's practically like she purrs it. One of her knees sinks into the mattress beside my hip, and then her other knee does the same to the other side, and then effortlessly Jordan Cavanaugh settles down into my lap. My hands go to her waist instinctively to keep her from toppling backwards. Her hands, meanwhile, are on either side of my neck, making the sensitive skin there tingle beneath her fingers.

"I am," I quietly confess, my gaze locked into hers.

"Don't be," she pleads, and her eyelids lined in smoke and haze slide closed, and her thin little mouth opens fully around mine, taking both of my lips into its warmth. All of the breath I'd been holding in my lungs whooshes past her teeth and it isn't very sexy, I know, but at least I'm not suffocating myself anymore. I use some of my regained control to deepen the kiss, moving one hand up to cradle the base of her skull, just underneath her damp curls. It isn't until I feel her tongue brush softly against mine that I begin to lose myself, my awkwardness melting away, the hand still on her waist beginning to massage the small of her back. She rocks her hips forward very slowly, perhaps even unconsciously, against mine and it takes a moment to realize that the muffled whimper I hear is my own. There isn't any conceivable way she can't feel how much I want her, with our bodies pressed together as they are, but it doesn't seem to frighten her or repulse her like I always thought it might. On the contrary, she grabs fistfuls of my leather jacket and begins tugging it fiercely over my shoulders, stripping the sleeves from my arms so recklessly that they turn inside-out. She nearly topples onto the floor in her effort to whip the ten-ton bloody thing over her head, but I tighten my arm about her so that only the jacket goes sailing through the air, and not my dear girl. No sooner does it land than is she clawing at my t-shirt, completely soaked through and sticking to my skin as she yanks it over my head, raising my arms awkwardly upward like a mother undressing a toddler.

"Jordan, slow down," I admonish her, grinning at her eagerness but squeezing my eyes shut so the collar of my shirt doesn't rip them out of their sockets.

"I don't want to," she replies, tossing away the t-shirt, too, with a flick of her wrist. It lands with a sodden plop on the nightstand and knocks the telephone off the hook as it sinks to the floor.

"Bulls-eye, love," I compliment her accuracy. In response, she slams her palms into my chest. "Oof." My back hits the mattress and she holds me down with her fingers curled around my knobby elbows, keeping my arms above my head. Her hips move in tantalizingly slow adjustments as she settles herself on top of me, her sweet-smelling ash brown hair tumbling over her shoulders and nearly touching my skin. I try to arch myself up to meet her, but she's got me pinned, and to be pinned underneath Jordan Cavanaugh is really not half bad. Not half bad indeed.

"I didn't bring any feathers," she says, her voice a husky growl. I don't understand what she bloody means at first, but then I remember that day she blindfolded me and took me to that horrible chain supermarket. I've forgotten the name of it, now. What was it? Oh yes, Total Mart. To help her pick out a present for her father. I hadn't_ really_ thought she'd brought me to a motel, because I never thought I could possibly be that lucky, but I remember making some slight joke about it, and I did ask her if she brought any feathers. My grin spreads a bit wider across my features and I feel a blush fall over my cheeks. I can't bloody believe she remembers that.

"It's all right," I reply, gazing up at her in what I'm sure must pass for complete and total bliss. We could stay like this all night and never go any further and I would still die a happy man. The expression on Jordan's face seems sort of serious and even a bit intimidating, like being trapped underneath a wild tiger. But I know she's probably just calculating her next move, wondering if she should be in control or if she should let me take over, if she should be sweet or saucy or scary or a combination of the three. She's just as nervous as I am, I can tell. Suddenly I want nothing more than to wrap her up against me and snuggle under the covers with her, to just forget the whole bloody thing. We don't have to do this tonight, we can wait a day or a week or the rest of our lives if we so choose.

But then I feel her hips jolt forwards against me once more, and I gasp, a pang of desire causing my stomach to clench up. No. Now. _Now_, it has to be now. I want it now.

"You're so pale, Nigel," she whispers, her tone leaning more towards appreciation than anything else, or maybe even awe. "Like the moon." She loosens one hand from one of my elbows and presses it against the center of my chest, then sets her fingertips upright against my skin and lets them dance along the surface of it, touching my collar and my ribs and my hipbones and my stomach, poking her little pinkie finger playfully into my belly button. "I've never seen you without your shirt off. Sometimes I think you look like a painting. You know? I can't explain how. I was thinking about it after you called. I thought you looked like something else, too. Like a picture, or something. A really old one, like the Victorian ones you see sometimes hanging in historical places, of black-and-white people with top hats and very formal suits and those vacant, kind of depressed looks on their faces. You look like that. Not vacant and depressed, just... I don't know. Old-fashioned, somehow. Dignified. Classic. _Timeless_, that's the word I thought of. You look timeless... ageless. You act that way, too. Like your spirit is hundreds and hundreds of years old and you've seen so much and you've been through so much and you know the secret of happiness already, so everything in your life right now is just gravy. The icing on the cake. And that's why no matter what goes wrong you have a handle on things, and you make people feel better because it always seems like no matter how bad things are, as long as Nigel Townsend is smiling then everything is going to be okay."

She pauses then, as if realizing that she only meant to say a word or two to pass the time, or perhaps comment on what my shallow, starving rockstar chest looks like in comparison to what she's used to, but instead she's said more than she's ever admitted to herself. She doesn't look me in the eye. I never thought any of those things about myself and it certainly never even occurred to me that Jordan Cavanaugh might think them. I'm completely speechless and so, it seems, is she. We're both silent for a handful of comfortable moments, and then Jordan bows lithely over me and I feel the soft damp tickle of her lips pressing against my nipple in a kiss. The shocking innocence of the act touches me so greatly that it sends a ripple of emotion shooting through my veins and for the briefest of seconds my vision actually clouds over as my eyes well up with tears. I swallow heavily to make them go away. I don't know what it is that I did to finally deserve this.

"May I undress you, love?" My voice is deeper than it was a few moments ago.

"Yes," she whispers, and I feel her body go limp over mine, her legs stretching all the way out. Her toes barely touch the tops of my boots and I realize that no matter how long and lanky Jordan is, she's still so very much smaller than I am. And delicate, and fragile, yes, Jordan Cavanaugh is fragile, no matter how strong and brave and capable she seems. I have to be careful with her, I don't want to break her or hurt her in any way. My arms link around her waist and I cradle her as I roll her onto her back, careful not to crush her in the process. I reach around her wild mess of curls and pull a too-flat, too-soft hotel pillow from beneath the tucked-in tepid comforter, slapping it with my palm a few times to fluff it up a bit before slipping it under her head.

"There we are," I whisper, encouraged by her smile. My fingers are wedged beneath her frame and they fumble around a bit for the zipper, finding it only when Jordan arches her back to give them more room. I can feel them trembling as they pull the little bit of metal down its narrow track, very slowly until they reach the end. Then her body relaxes against the mattress again.

I'm almost loathe to rid her of the beautiful violet dress, because I'm certain now, although I can't say quite why, that I'm the first person to ever see her wear it. That makes it special to me, and I'm incredibly cautious as I pluck at its straps, watching them fall away from her little shoulders and watching still as she gracefully slips each willowy arm out of them. My hands go timidly to her breasts, cupping just the sides of them through the thinly spun wet cotton of the loosened dress. My eyes don't waver from Jordan's as I gently peel away the bodice and replace it with both palms. Her eyes slide closed and a barely audible sound passes her lips, some amalgam of a whisper and a whimper and a sigh. Her skin is freezing, arctic, and my palms are boiling hot and regrettably a bit sweaty, but Jordan doesn't seem to mind the contrast. Her breasts are small and round and perfect, each fitting in one hand, her nipples hard against my lifelines. Jordan's breasts. How many times have I wanted to touch them through those little t-shirts she wears? And now she's letting me, she wants me to. She wants a lot more than that, I can tell by the way she reaches between us and tugs at the waistband of my jeans, her fingers working to unlatch my belt buckle. Her eyes are open again and they're an almost transparent chestnut beneath the glow of the dim bedside lamp. Mine must look the same.

"Love," I whisper, for no particular reason at all. My belt is sliding through its denim loops around my waist, tugged away by Jordan's nimble fingers. The little metal button is plucked out of its hole. The zipper slides down its track. "Love." That word again. I wonder if she knows now that every single time I called her that word in the past nine and a half years, I meant it. Really, truly meant it. My hands glide over her breasts and down the milky smooth valley of her stomach, and only then do I allow myself one definite, lingering look, admiring her skin which is not unlike mine in its paleness. Her nipples are like little pink roses and the lavender veins just visible beneath her skin are like faintly drawn vines. Beautiful. Beautiful.

"You're breathtaking," I say when I've managed to find my voice again, although it's so quiet that perhaps she can't hear me at all. "If either of us look like a painting, Jordan, it's you. I would if I could. Paint you, I mean. I would."

As I'm speaking, I become aware that her thighs have parted and I'm settled between them, the both of us still fully clothed from the waist down. "Keep going, Nigel," she whispers through a smile, five of her slender fingers just brushing over my cheek and then falling back to their place on the bed. "Don't get shy again. You're almost there."

I am. I am almost there. My destination lies only a few inches south and I continue to peel the dress over her hips and thighs until I've turned it completely inside out and from there I don't know where it goes because Jordan has kicked it away and I am too engrossed in my newest discovery to mark where the fabric lands.

Panties. Mint green. Mint green panties, little tiny briefs that blend wonderfully against the milky whiteness of her hips and add a whole new shade of femininity to the Jordan I already know. They're thin, and dry, untouched by the storm. I'm instantly fascinated with them; they should be in a museum under glass somewhere. I would never even think of touching them, perish the thought. But Jordan takes my hand in her hand and places it there, right there, directly in the center, and then all of the breath escapes _both_ of our lungs.

"Touch me," she directs, and I do sense more than a hint of impatience in her voice. I'm going far too slowly. It's funny, really, I always thought it would be the other way round for me. "Take them off. Touch me. Do something."

"I... I couldn't," I stammer, still dazzled by the sight of Jordan's panties, and now by the sight of my hand on Jordan's panties. More than ever do I feel like a teenager in high school, chaste and inexperienced and dumbfounded.

"Yes you can," she insists, her voice verging on hysteria, now. I feel the apex of her knee nudging the center of my back. "It's easy. Watch." And then she slips her hand into the opened fly of my jeans and touches me through the cotton of my briefs.

"Oh Christ, love," I cry, my brow bowing down between her breasts in worship. My lips stumble numbly in circles over every inch of skin there, all around the pale little hills and the lavender veins and then finally the roses in the middle; I take one in my mouth and Jordan lets out a little cry and touches me again, and then I let out a little cry and grab the elastic band of her panties in all ten fingers and before I even know it they're gone, they've vanished, I have decreed it so.

"See, that wasn't so bad, Nige," Jordan declares, her voice breathless and jumpy with the nerves that she manages to contain otherwise. She's naked underneath me now, completely naked, and I'm torn between wanting to look at her and wanting to touch her and wanting to take my clothes off, too, so that she doesn't have to be naked alone.

"Not a'tall," I agree, nearly feverish with desire for her. In the end, Jordan makes my decision for me, taking my hand and slipping it between her thighs. Every other part of her body is icy cold but this one, however she's just as damp here as she is everyplace else. I find what I'm looking for automatically, and I straighten up to see the flush bloom over her cheeks, deep crimson, long curls beginning to stick to her neck and her forehead. A sudden determination drives through me; I want to give her pleasure, the greatest pleasure. I want nothing more in this moment than to make Jordan Cavanaugh happy.

Time passes slowly for us, each second lingering, and though sometimes I bow my lips to her neck or her breast or her mouth, my eyes return always to hers, and by watching them I discover what she likes and what feels good to her, what makes her gasp and bite her lower lip. I don't rush and I don't take my hand away until I feel her shift beneath me and she cries out.

I'm smiling as I press my lips against her brow, damp with perspiration and smelling as musky-sweet as her hair. Both of her arms are around me and her legs, too, folded over my lower back, and I stay like that, pressed tightly to her, until her breathing returns to normal.

"Nigel," I hear her whisper, and there are terms of endearment laced throughout it, as though she's really saying a million other things and not just my name. Again I kiss her forehead and she continues to speak, sounding mildly stunned by what's just occurred. "Take your boots off, Nigel."

Until this very moment I'd forgotten I was still wearing the bloody things. I'd forgotten about everything except Jordan, pleasing Jordan. I'm loathe to leave her side for even just one minute, but her legs are already slipping lackadaisically from my hips and stretching out flat against the mattress again. I crawl reluctantly away from her and maneuver myself to sit at the edge of the bed, crossing one long leg over the other. Thankfully I don't have to mess about with the bootlaces; these Docs have been broken in for a number of years so I can just pull them right off. My socks, too, and then I stand, my back facing her.

"Only my boots, love?" I ask. My voice is rough; it feels like it's been a long time since I've said anything.

"No," I hear her reply. "Everything, love."

Her use of the word causes goosebumps to break out along every inch of skin that is exposed to the stale motel room air, and it prompts me to gather up the waistbands of my jeans and my underwear and perform the world's fastest striptease, stepping out of the terribly constricting fabric in under five seconds flat. Hastily I turn around, wanting to get under the covers with her as quickly as possible before she has a chance to see what I look like naked and run the other way. But I stop short at the sight of her, _all_ of her, all of what I didn't get to look at before.

"You really are some sort of goddess, Jordan," I decide, my eyes fixated on the little triangle of dark brown curls just below her milky white stomach. Self-consciously she bends her knees and folds her arms over her lap to cover herself up, and it is this action that reminds me how stark raving naked I am as well. "Bloody hell," I mutter, grabbing for the edge of the blanket nearest to me and wrapping it partially around my waist like a bath towel. "I don't know why _you're_ covering up. You aren't the one that looks like an underfed cartoon character."

She laughs at that, one extremely loud, unavoidable guffaw. "Don't be an asshole, Nige, I love the way you look." To illustrate this point, she grabs the blanket in both fists and yanks it away, causing my privates to give a little jump at the sudden exposure. That makes her laugh even more. "I'm not laughing at you," she cries between giggles. "I'm not. I'm not, I swear. You're beautiful, Nigel. You're so... so..._ beautiful_." She laughs even as she says it, but somehow I know she's not making fun of me. It's probably just the shock of seeing me like this for the first time. She probably just doesn't know any other way to react to... My eyes flicker downward. To _that_. My chest swells a bit with pride and then deflates with shame for being proud, and just the general embarrassment of standing in front of a girl I've secretly loved for years in nothing but my birthday suit. I have to admit I feel slightly like an ogre, that if I got under the covers with her now I'd terrify her, and that I have to try to do everything I can to make myself appear unthreatening. I've felt that way with nearly every woman I've ever slept with, completely inadequate. A monster.

"Well, thank you, then, love," I stammer, watching as she tries to put a muzzle on her amusement. "Although I don't quite see what's so beautiful about me. I hate the way I look. It isn't good for much except scaring the shit out of people. Even the birds that hang around the club find me intimidating, and they're freaks in their own rite. There is the whole English thing I suppose, but it doesn't help much. I should be smaller. You know. Wispier. More normal and proper looking. Like Hugh Grant. You American birds just love Hugh Grant. The perfect British specimen, an absolute church mouse. Personally I think he's revolting. What a horrible stereotype. But if I did look more like him, at least I'd be approachable to women. As a matter of fact, love, you're just about the only woman I've ever known who actually seems to respect me for who I really am. Despite the fact that you're laughing at my tallywhacker, of course."

This sends Jordan near to an epileptic fit, and she launches herself up to a stand, forgetting all about her own self-consciousness in order to assuage mine. She wobbles unsteadily across the huge mattress to me and then throws both arms around my neck, gathering me close and laughing so hard that it isn't even making an audible sound anymore. I press my cheek against hers and laugh a bit as well, wrapping my arms about her waist.

"I'm sorry," she finally manages, after she's finished laughing. "If it makes you feel any better I think you're much sexier than Hugh Grant. He doesn't even compare to you, and anyone who would sleep with Elizabeth fucking Hurley isn't worth an ounce of my respect anyway."

That's so Jordan, it's such a Jordan thing to say. I bow my head and press my grin against her neck. "I personally would never sleep with Elizabeth Hurley, love," I say.

"See, now that makes me like you even more." She pulls away slightly and looks at me, her expression suddenly serious. "You don't scare me, Nige. The last thing I'd ever want is for you to look normal and proper. If you did, you just wouldn't be my Nigel." Her hands are on my cheeks and she leans forward until the tip of her nose touches mine. I award her with a brief Eskimo kiss, shaking my head slowly from side to side so that our noses rub together.

Jordan likes me just the way I am, and that's more than I could ever hope for. She's a bit of an odd duck, this girl of mine. She could have any man she wants, especially a certain all-around conventionally handsome police detective. Woodrow Hoyt is wholesome and noble, a blue-eyed, blue-collar boy with solid tanned biceps, who could give her a big white wedding with a big white cake and a big white dress in a good old fashioned Irish Catholic cathedral and have her pregnant within the year. He could give her that happy ending and the vapid, sedated bliss of normalcy. All she has to do is say the word. But instead she's here with me, the longshot, the oddball, the underdog who is completely and totally unused to getting the girl. Perhaps I underestimated Jordan Cavanaugh. Perhaps she isn't like other women, perhaps she would truly _rather_ hop on the back of a motorcycle and take the road less traveled instead of packing up the minivan to run errands on main street. Perhaps we can be Jack and Sally for a very long time; weird and content in our weirdness.

We sink down to the bed together, each of us pulling the comforter from its tucked-in corners and wrapping it around our bodies. Every movement is liquid and dream-like and reminds me of our midnight waltz. My hands are on her breasts and then her hands are in my hair and then I am inside her. I am inside of Jordan, her legs twined high around my back, my arms beneath her shoulders, cradling her as we move together, meeting and parting like the ocean and the shore. I cannot speak or think, I can only _feel_, my ears relishing each one of her gasps, her cries, her whispered words. My eyes are closed for long intervals, concentrating on the slow symphonic rhythm of our contact and the way it feels to be completely surrounded by Jordan, how warm she is, how smooth, how wet. Everything is exactly as I always imagined it and yet completely different. Tender and emotional and intense. And slow, always slow, and every time I open my eyes she is there, and her eyes always seem to be a slightly different color than they were the last time I looked. My fingers are tangled in her hair and hers are on my face, touching my eyes and my nose and my lips and I kiss them one by one. Deeper, so much deeper with every gentle nudge of my hips, until I feel that if I put my hand to her chest it would become transparent and I could reach right through her skin and touch her very soul.

I don't know how much time passes, maybe twenty minutes, maybe an hour, maybe a lifetime or anywhere in-between. Time seems to stand still for us, and I don't mind at all. I could stay like this forever with Jordan. But after a while our movements grow faster and more deliberate, and Jordan gets more vocal and I get more vocal, and then I reach between our bodies to touch her and she tightens all around me until I can't breathe properly and then... and then...

_Everything_. Everything happens all at once, she's crying out sharply and I'm saying her name - all I hear is _Jordan, Jordan, Jordan_ over and over again in a voice that doesn't sound like mine, it's too harsh, it's too desperate, I almost sound like I'm sobbing it. The bed sways like a boat in open water and my lips are on hers and I smell rain and sweat and Jordan's shampoo and all of my insides have exploded and left me weak and defenseless in the wreckage.

However long it was that we made love, we stay motionless for even longer, the both of us too exhausted to try to do anything but regain our normal pulse. After a while, I pull away from her and curl up by her side instead. Jordan remains on her back with her eyes closed; perhaps she fell asleep. I slip both arms around her and rest my head on the lone flat motel pillow, my nose pressed against her cheek. I close my eyes to prepare for sleep.

"Nigel, promise me something," I hear Jordan whisper. She's awake, after all.

"Anything, love," I reply, and I mean it. She could ask me to move to Zaire or kill myself or kill her or never speak to her again and I would do it all without consequence or doubt.

"Promise me you'll wake me up before you leave for work."

"Ah, love," I whisper, bowing my head and nuzzling a kiss against her jaw. "That's an easy one. Of course I will, I promise. I was going to anyway, so pick something else as well. It's a two for one special on promises tonight. Make it a hard one."

"Okay," she replies, and she takes a few silent seconds to decide. "Promise me that we'll always be Jack and Sally, and never Hugh and Elizabeth."

My laugh is light and my smile is sleepy. Underneath the covers I find one of her hands and intertwine our fingers nice and tight.

"I promise."


	10. All Good Dreams

**London After Midnight**

**DISCLAIMER: **Sorry about the long wait for such a short chapter, but I spent the weekend on vacation in Atlantic City. The next chapter will be much longer and include a little bit of that conflict everyone's jonesing for, lol. I got a lot of ideas for it and I finally know exactly where this fic is headed, so just sit back, relax, and enjoy the ride.

**MANY THANKS:** Thank you **Nikki**, **ShadowyFigure**, **Aesear**, **canadianfan**, and **jtbwriter** for your continued praise. Special thanks to **Watson** for your constructive criticism that continues to show me the way. I love you all!

**Chapter Ten**

**"All Good Dreams"**

**Jordan**

I'm sure I dream. I must, because when I wake up I feel them, rapidly fading memories of comfortable river-water dreams that flow around me, every so often one of them brushing against my skin as softly as the pillowy cotton of the striped comforter I'm laying under. Dreams of Mom and being very small, cinnamon toast and the swing in my grandmother's backyard and the way my Dad would dance my mother around the kitchen to cassette mixes of their favourite songs from the Sixties. Dreams of the ocean lapping against the sand in San Francisco, and the smell of shish kabobs and cotton candy, Tyler's stupid Nautica cologne and how he always wore too much of it, the sensation of marijuana smoke filling my lungs and making my whole body tingle, and a purple dress on a rack outside a little shop on the boardwalk, just begging me to buy it. Dreams of rain and red wine and the Cure, and being wrapped up with Nigel Townsend in a midnight waltz that moved from the darkness of the dance floor to the dim lamplight of a cheap and ugly little motel room. All good dreams that vanish like dry-ice fog through my fingers when I reach for them and try to grab on for too long.

"Love." A voice breaks through the struggle to return to sleep, soothing English syllables that remind me of all my dreams. "I promised I'd wake you, love, so I am. I'm sorry. You can go back to sleep if you like. Check-out isn't for another four hours. But I've got to leave for work. Jordan, are you awake?"

It takes a moment to realize he's asked me a question and I should respond. "Yes," I say, my voice uncharacteristically soft and quiet.

I feel the backs of his fingers brush against my cheek. "I've got to go, love. I do so wish I didn't have to, but Garret would have a fit if _two_ of his best ME's weren't on the clock today."

My hand makes a slow and difficult crawl from beneath the pillow to cover Nigel's hand on my face. His is surprisingly cool and smooth and, I realize, smells like the bar soap from the bathroom. He must have just showered. "I'll probably go back tomorrow," I murmur, still in that docile, feminine tone. I don't yet have the strength to open my eyes.

"I've left you some cash on the nightstand to take a cab home. I'd drive you if you wanted, but you're tired?"

"I have money, Nigel," I weakly protest.

"Yes, but I feel bad that you've even got to take a cab at all," he replies, his thumb stroking my cheek. "So are you too tired to ride with me?"

"I'll fall off," I say, smiling for no reason at all. His fingers find their way to my lips, exploring the thin line of the expression.

"Shall I pick you up on my lunch break, then?"

"Go to work, Nigel," I beg him, smiling wider. All I really want is to go back to sleep and with each passing second that task proves more and more difficult. Finally I relent to opening my eyes, just a little bit, the lids sliding up halfway.

It's so strange waking up to Nigel Townsend kneeling next to the mattress I've been sleeping on - _we've_ been sleeping on, his arms were around me for most of the night - and seeing him in yesterday's clothes, a sincere, pleasant expression on his face, his fingers roaming from my lips back to my cheek, and from my cheek to my shoulder, as bare as the rest of me. The blanket is pulled down around my ribcage and there's nothing covering my breasts. I'm too exhausted to feel really self-conscious but I halfheartedly cover them with my forearm anyway.

"There you are," Nigel whispers. His voice seems quieter now that my eyes are open. "I'm sorry I woke you."

"It's okay," I assure him. "I made you promise."

"You look like a Grecian muse in the morning."

I narrow my eyes at him in scrutiny, but he seems to be completely serious, which makes me laugh. "You're fucking crazy."

"I know, love, but that is neither here nor there." Nigel leans forward suddenly, something I'm totally unprepared for. I flinch and squeeze my eyes shut as he presses his lips to my forehead. He chuckles softly. "I haven't got the black plague, you know."

"I'd be in serious trouble if you did, wouldn't I?" I grin, and then my mouth stretches involuntarily wider in a yawn that I forget to cover with my palm. "I'm so out of it," I explain apologetically, wrapping my arms awkwardly around Nigel's bony shoulders. "Lay down with me. Do you have a hangover?"

"Not really," he replies, and the bed shifts and rocks violently as he tries to maneuver his lanky body underneath the tangled mess of comforter and bedsheets. I squirm to my right to give him more room. "I've gotten well-practiced at drinking over the years. It takes a lot for me to get really pissed. I haven't got much time, love." He gathers me in both arms anyway, pulling me against his fully-clothed frame. His t-shirt is completely dry and sweet-smelling, but his jeans are still a little damp.

I burrow fully into his cradle, even slipping both of my legs between both of his much larger ones, totally flattening myself out. "We had sex last night," I whisper after a while.

"Indeed we did," he confirms it in a low, quiet tone, his chin resting on the top of my head. "Do you wish we hadn't?"

I take a few moments to think about this and come up with only memories, brief visual flashes that make my face grow warm. Nigel's hand on my panties. My dress on the floor. His hips on my hips, the jutted-out bones there bumping together. The awkward, messily choreographed movements of two skinny, capricious weirdoes making love. The way his neck smelled. My name on his lips when he came, when I came, when we came together.

"No," I firmly decide. "No, I'm glad we did, Nige." I experience a moment of total clarity; complete confident resolve. But that moment is all too brief, and what follows it is a jolt of panic. "Why?" I ask, my eyes widening in renewed lucidity but not daring to look up at him. "...Aren't you?"

"Oh, quite, love!" he cries, both of his hands grasping at either of my cheeks, gently urging my head up to find his eyes. "Absolutely! I only wanted to make sure... that we were on the same page, that's all."

His eyes look green when matched with the avocado pillowcase under our head as we lay side by side. He's every bit as beautiful as I thought he was last night, maybe even more so because he's not just good old Nigel anymore. Now he inhabits some obscure, subterranean part of me that has been occupied for so long by empty space that I feel incredibly full with emotion just looking at him. Now he's beautiful in a deeply personal way.

"I've got to go now, Jordan," he whispers, his eyes never leaving mine even after his body has begun to withdraw from the bed. I hold his gaze, watching him take his jacket from where he must have hung it over the back of the aluminum chair. Mine, I notice, is hung underneath his, and all of my clothes are folded in a neat pile on the seat, none of them looking wet at all. He must have put them under the heat lamp when he woke up, or maybe he didn't go to sleep as soon as I did.

Nigel slips his long arms into the jacket sleeves and smiles warmly at me, finally breaking our shared gaze as he maneuvers his way past the bed to the door. "See you later, Sally," he looks back to say.

"Hit the road, Jack," I reply without missing a beat. At first I'm content with watching him open the door and start out, but then a sudden jolt of urgency propels me up to a straight sit, the blanket falling down around my waist. "_Wait!_" I call out sharply.

The door swings open so hard it bangs against the opposite wall, and Nigel is on the threshold again, his attention completely focused on me. "What is it, love?"

"I forgot to say it last night," I explain quickly before I can even think about the option of chickening out. My voice is firm but jumpy with nerves. "I love you, too."

I don't know how he makes it from the doorway to the bed so fast; it seems like he takes two long strides and he is there, his knee resting on the mattress as he leans his whole body across it and plunges all ten of his fingers into my hair, pulling my lips to his. I struggle for breath as we kiss, grabbing tight fistfuls of his shirt collar, and just as I'm ready to collapse back against the bed and bring him with me, Nigel separates our mouths abruptly and withdraws. I collapse anyway, breathing heavily. Neither of us say another word to each other as he stumbles back to the door and opens it again, and in a moment he is gone.

Everything is changing, the whole world, and for once in my life I don't feel a shred of fear attached to the thought. As surely as I'm wrapped in this comforter and in the scent of Nigel's fresh, herbal cologne, I am also wrapped in complete serenity and I take the opportunity to bask in it, rolling over onto my stomach and diving into dreams again.


	11. The Icing On the Proverbial Cake

**London After Midnight**

**DISCLAIMER:**Okay okay, sorry about the length of the last chapter. I didn't want it to be Standard Cheesy Morning After Overkill, so I decided to keep it short and simple. Like I said, this chapter is longer and includes much more action, so I hope it makes up for it. As far as all the legal stuff mentioned in this chapter is concerned, I did do a little research, so it's probably partially correct, but don't throw stones if I'm not as accurate as an episode of_ Law & Order_. I'm just a simple fanfic writer, after all. This is for entertainment purposes only.

**MANY THANKS: **Thank you **Aesear**, **Nikki**, and **ShadowyFigure** for your continued praise. Thank you **Saskia** for your first review - I hope you continue to read and enjoy the fic. Thank you **canadianfan** for your positive comments and good luck to you with your first CJ fic, I've read it and I think it's fabulous - everyone read _This Bug's Love Life_ and give it a positive review! To **NCCJFAN** - I actually did check out your new fic even before you told me to, but I picked up right away that it was J&W so I didn't read further, lol. Sorry, but I've been known to have violent episodes if I'm exposed to anything having to do with J&W. However if anyone here ever writes a J&N fic, I want to be the first to know about it so I can shower you with love. Special thanks to **Moo**, because I've been such a fan of yours for such a long time and I'm honored that you reviewed my fic. Please please PLEASE update your J&N fics. I love them so much - they're what prompted me to put LAM up on here! Okay, enough idle chit chat. On with the fic!

**Chapter Eleven**

**"The Icing on the Proverbial Cake"**

**Nigel**

She loves me.

That's what she said. Jordan Cavanaugh loves me, no misconceptions about it. I'm not dreaming, or hoping, or overanalyzing, or letting my judgment get clouded by my feelings for her. She actually, truly loves me, and this time I know it's real because I heard it straight from the horse's mouth.

After we made love last night I was so exhausted that I fell asleep without any worries, completely clear of all doubt, and I slept for a good handful of hours before awakening with a start, not unlike the kind one might give after experiencing an incredibly lifelike, vivid dream. That's when the doubt and the fear crept up behind me for a sneak attack, and I was instantly certain that when Jordan woke up she would regret it, all of it, everything we did and all the words we said to each other. Imagine my surprise when not only was her positive outlook on the situation unaffected by sleep, but she actually called me back into the room to tell me that she loves me. I never thought it possible, not after nearly a decade of pining for her and swearing off the notion that she could ever return my affections. Imagine my surprise - just try to imagine it. You cannot. It's unfathomable.

I drive to work in a shaken daze. I pay no attention to traffic lights or crossing pedestrians. Sometimes in my joy I speed through intersections and take turns at breakneck velocity and other times I'm so focused on replaying in my head what transpired just before I left the motel that I decelerate to a near complete stop, never even noticing until I realize people walking their dogs are going faster than I am.

I reach the morgue in time to punch the clock, and I feel strangely like I'm floating as I stroll down the hall to my office, experiencing the kind of blissful apathy that a schoolboy feels when he has to endure a day in and out of meaningless classrooms in order to catch a glimpse or two of his latest crush. It's true that Jordan isn't at work today, but I'll see her afterwards, and in the meantime I have the memory of her to keep me company. Knowing all of this, somehow, the workday doesn't seem quite so long.

As I pass the locked door to her office, my eyes scroll over the name printed neatly on the frosted glass. _Dr. Jordan Cavanaugh_. I stop walking immediately and loiter in front of the entrance, staring at the sharp black lettering and smiling rather stupidly, I'd imagine, in keeping with the general schoolboy theme. If I had a backpack on my shoulders I'd surely be toying awkwardly with the straps, hoisting it high up on my shoulders and then letting it fall down to my elbows. But I don't have a backpack; in fact, my hands are quite free. I know this because I'm reaching up with one of them to run my fingertips along the name on the door, the slightly raised paint tickling the grooves of my skin.

"Is she in?" An urgent voice just over my shoulder. I jump about three feet in the air and yank my hand away from the glass.

"What? Who?" I sputter instinctively, my face growing hot with embarrassment. I swivel around so fast my opposite elbow whacks into the door and I grimace in pain, reaching up instantly to rub it.

"Um..." I find myself face to face with none other than Detective Woodrow Hoyt, standing there in his usual bad tie and tucked in dress shirt and shiny shoes and overcoat, his hair gelled up into a stiffened mohawk-type concoction reminiscent of Sonic the Hedgehog and guaranteed to last the entire day - God forbid it should fall out of place. He gestures to the door as if to say, _The woman whose name you were just fingering, you creepy limey stalker_. "Jordan," he says instead, with that permanent furrow of annoyance sutured deep into his brow. "Is she in?"

Suddenly and completely without warning, I realize I've been thrown into the very situation I've been dreaming about - practically salivating over - ever since I first laid eyes on Woodrow Hoyt.

_Well,_ I could say, if I had large enough balls to attempt it, _No, actually. Jordan isn't reporting to work today because she's simply exhausted. You may wonder how I know this. Well, I hate to be the one to break it to you, Woodrow - oh, who am I kidding? I'm enjoying every second of it. You see, I just parted with Jordan about twenty minutes ago. She's asleep in a nice little bed in a nice little motel that we spent the entire night in having quite possibly the most intense, passionate sex I've ever experienced in my life. Yes, it certainly seems that I've done more with her last night than you could ever hope to, oh and by the way, did you know that she loves me? She does. She said so herself. Has she ever told you that she loves you, Woodrow? I didn't think so. That's really just too bad. Have a lovely day, mate._

I could say that. I _should_ say that. The words are bouncing about like Mexican jumping beans on my tongue, just itching to burst out into the open and slap him across the face with their vociferousness. But what would Jordan think of them? She might be decidedly upset if she found out I went to work and blathered about our sex life to anyone who was willing to listen. Perhaps it isn't my place to tell Woodrow Hoyt what happened last night. Perhaps Jordan would rather break it to him herself...

_I never wanted to sleep with him. He saved my life once and I owe a lot to him. But not that. I don't want Woody. I want you._

Last night, those words were like a soothing aloe balm against my rough, mistreated heart, and simply remembering them right now melts me sufficiently enough to put my jealous male superiority aside. Woodrow Hoyt is no longer a threat to me. I have no reason to be anything but civil to him.

"Ahm, no," I finally reply, as nonchalant as I can make myself seem. "No, she isn't. Not today. She's probably just taking a few days off, is all. The funeral was really hard on her."

"Yeah," he agrees. "I really have to talk to her, though. We kind of had a fight the other day, after her brother... you know. After it happened. I guess I just want to try to get things back on track with us."

"Back on track?" Civility be damned. The hairs on the scruff of my neck bristle up like a rabid dog about to mark his territory and I feel myself straighten to my full height, towering suddenly a good three or four inches above Woodrow. I fold both arms over my chest. "Is that so?"

He doesn't seem to notice my possessive display, not that I'd ever expect Woodrow to have concern for my feelings. "Yeah. We kind of said some things we didn't mean and I guess I just want to say I'm sorry and give her a chance to apologize too. I was calling her all last night, but she's not picking up her landline or her cell phone. I guess she's pretty pissed at me."

"Oh?" I say, when what I really want to say is, _Aye, she is. And she was with me all night, me me me, so bugger off._ I keep my lips pursed and remain mum.

"Yeah. So I'll probably just pass by her apartment later. She can't ignore me forever, right?"

_Wanna bet?_ I long to growl, to get right up into his face and spit at him. All of my guards have thrusted themselves upwards and I feel my fists tightening uncontrollably from their hiding places tucked inside the crooks of my elbows. My teeth grind together.

"No, I suppose not." My voice is flat and supine. I don't want Woodrow to _pass by_ Jordan's apartment later. I don't want her to let him in and to sit him down and have a conversation with him. I don't want them to apologize to each other, to kiss and make up, oh God, no, _never_. She's my girl, Woodrow Hoyt, I love her and you can't take her away from me, I won't let you.

Every muscle in my body has tightened up so much that it aches. I have to get away from him _right now_ before I really _do_ say something I'll regret. "I've got to go, I have an autopsy," I murmur nearly unintelligibly, stepping quickly away from the door and continuing stiffly on down the hallway. I wish I never stopped in the first place.

The door to my office is wide open and Bug is already inside with his usual Styrofoam coffee cup, taking sporadic sips as he shuffles about, pulling out volumes from his bookcase and scanning through the pages of several large encyclopedias already opened and spread out across his desk. His computer is turned on and running a Google search and mine, I notice with contempt, is on as well and running a Yahoo search. The room has the general appearance of a sort of library explosion ground zero.

"Busy little bee today, are we, Buggles?" I ask, my voice sounding weary after my miserable run-in with Woody.

"You could say that," he replies with a lilt of excitement in his tone, his eyes darting from the books on his desk to the images on the computer screens to the contents of his coffee cup, but never once to me. "I found a veritable motherload of larvae behind the eyelids of this partial decomp we dragged from the woods? The thing is, I can't seem to identify them in any of my books. I might be onto something really huge. I've got the Entomological Foundation Hotline on hold on my phone and yours. I've been waiting to speak to a live representative for nearly..." He glances at his watch. "...Forty minutes now."

"Bloody hell," I murmur. "I didn't realize how many nutters with insect fetishes there are in this country. And it's not even half past nine yet. There must be a mutant cicada invasion going on in Pasadena or something." The path to my desk is all but completely blocked by a rolling metal tray, on which are piled more books and several dried insect specimens under glass. I reach up with one hand to rub agitatedly at my chin. This is turning out to be quite the morning. I should have stayed in bed.

Christ how I wish I'd stayed in bed.

"Actually, cicadas are only springing up again in and around the Eastern seaboard. You wouldn't find them in Peoria, let alone Pasadena." Bug turns to me for some reason, then, as if he's suddenly realized this is my office, too. I expect him to roll the tray away so I can at least get to my computer, but instead he just squints quizzically at me. "Isn't that the same shirt you wore yesterday?"

I look down at myself. I'm wearing a blue t-shirt with the geographical outline of my homeland silkscreened in the center - and England really does look something like a demented bunny rabbit, I must say.

"Yes, it certainly appears that way," I reply, unable to conceal the smirk that's begun to flourish across my lips. "Don't you like it?"

"It figures," he mutters, turning away from me as abruptly as he turned to faced me in the first place. "This morning I passed Peter practically inspecting one of the new intern's tonsils in the parking lot. Renee Walcott comes in without her entourage and makes a beeline for Dr. Macy's office, where they've been with the door locked for nearly an hour now. And Lily... I overheard Lily telling Devon about some dinner she had last night with a grief counselor she met at a convention over the weekend."

He takes a pause so long that I have to swallow in empathy. Poor Buggles. If anyone is as familiar with the woes of unrequited love as I am, then surely it's him. He spins around to face me again. "And now you. Of course you, the icing on the proverbial cake. Have I gone crazy, or is everyone in the place wearing yesterday's clothes except me?"

"I don't know," I interject on impulse, a complete knee-jerk force of habit. "I'm fairly certain Emmy wasn't wearing a yellow skirt yesterday."

Bug sighs deeply and it fills me instantly with contrition. "It was a metaphor. _And_ it was a rhetorical question. Why do you always have to-" The sharp bleating ring of the office phone - _my_ office phone - cuts Bug off mid-sentence, so I never do find out what I always have to do that irritates him so, though I could take a few guesses. I watch him jerk the ten-ton rolling cart to the side as if it were made of packaging foam, and I'm surprised the entire thing doesn't tip over in his haste. He frantically pounces on the phone and yanks it from the charger, holding it up to his ear. "Hello? Hello? Oh thank God I'm finally speaking to a real person. I've been waiting all morning. I think I've made a breakthrough discovery... My name? Oh... Oh, it's..." Bug is so excited, it seems, that he's lost part of his frontal lobe and can't remember his own name. He turns to me pleadingly for assistance, but all I can do is shrug and offer him a look that says,_ If you can't remember that thirty-two letter horror, how do you expect me to?_ He doesn't dignify it with a response. "My name is Dr. Mahesh Vijayaraghavensatyanaryanamurthy... no... no, wait don't hang up, this is not a prank call!! NO!!" Much to my dismay, he chucks the phone directly at the floor, causing the whole charger to topple off my desk. "SHIT! SHIT! FUCK!"

I'm just torn between strangling him and laughing my ass off when there is a soft knock on the open door and I turn around to face Emmy, yellow skirt and all.

"Um... Dr. Townsend?" she addresses me but stares wide-eyed at Bug and his temper tantrum the entire time. "Dr. Macy wants to see you in his office."

The words fill me with instant apprehension and I'm not certain why. Most probably Garret only wants to assign me a new case, or request my consultation on somebody else's. But I suppose it's just a culmination of this morning's events thus far, plus the fact that Garret sent Emmy to do his dirty work and didn't come to me himself. Something's up, I can sense it. Leaving Bug to do his own ministration, I follow Emmy down the hall.

Garret's office door is closed, but Emmy opens it for me, another bad sign. Perhaps she knows I'm about to receive the thrashing of my life and feels sorry for me. After I reluctantly cross the threshold, she closes the door behind me so quickly she nearly takes the seat of my jeans off, and then two more bad signs greet me. Garret is sitting behind his desk pretending to be so busy he hasn't noticed my arrival, and he has his glasses on. Nothing good can ever come of a conversation in which Garret Macy is wearing his glasses. A few choice rows he's had with his very own daughter in this office come to mind, and in nearly all of them he was wearing his glasses. I feel suddenly as though I've been thrown into a room with my own irritable father, bearing the guilt of some unknown but assumedly horrible thing I've done. The panicked but completely irrational thought that this has something to do with Jordan crosses my mind. I banish it just as quickly as Emmy had shut the door.

I stand there for so long in silence that it doesn't take a brain surgeon to figure out I'm supposed to speak first. "You ah..." My voice trembles a bit, betraying my nervousness. "...Wanted to see me, Dr. Macy?"

After about six more years, he looks up. "Sit down," he says, in the most serious tone imaginable, and awards the chair on the opposite side of his desk one deliberate glance. It has been placed there just for me.

I reach out and grip my hands around it, fumbling with it like a blind man trying to get a good feel for an object he cannot see. Then finally I pull it out and sit in it. A beat after I do, Garret pulls out his own chair and stands up. This can't be good. This can't be good at all.

He begins to pace. "I've been a good boss, haven't I, Nigel?"

"Ahm..." I don't like the way he used past tense in that question. "Yes, sir. Certainly. The best boss."

"And I've treated you well?"

"Impeccably," I reply, and the thing is, it's the absolute truth. "Indubitably."

"I've always given you every opportunity to explain all your harebrained conspiracy theories, to argue your points, and to prove those points with evidence that I gave you time and money to collect?"

"Yes sir," I say. "Right you are. Every opportunity."

"And if," he continues, and I get the sense he's really on a roll now, "Say, it didn't work out exactly like you planned, and you got intercepted by the police, or a lawyer, or an irritated family member of a decedent, I bailed you out repeatedly and without prejudice or concern for my own job?"

I nod faithfully. "Absolutely. Repeatedly."

He stops pacing. "_Including_ that scrape with INS?"

At the mere mention of those initials, I feel my stomach bottom out, a lump of dread forming in my throat. Suddenly I know what this is about. "Including that scrape with INS," I repeat, my voice hushed and meek. I'm not watching Garret anymore; my eyes are glued to my hands in my lap. A child at the principal's office; the schoolboy theme continues.

Garret is quiet for several long moments, then he sits down in his chair again and folds his own hands on the desktop. "I guess you know why I called you in here now." His voice is softer and reflects the guilt I feel inside. "I got them off your back that time, Nigel, but it was temporary. Just telling them you were one of my best workers couldn't put them off forever. In the time that I bought you, you were supposed to apply for citizenship."

"I know," I say. The words are barely audible. I still don't look up.

"It's been two years since then. Why didn't you apply?"

I honestly can't muster up more than a shrug, and a few moments later, some murmured words. "It just kept slipping my mind, I suppose."

The truth is, I don't know why I haven't yet applied for US citizenship. I'm afraid, I suppose. I don't know of what. Rejection, maybe. Not being good enough for this country. Failing the test and looking incompetent. Being grilled by immigration and being asked the exact same question Garret has just asked me, and not being able to give them a solid reason. Or perhaps it's that I'm just not ready to give myself over to the United States. In my heart of hearts, I'm still an Englishman. I was born there and raised there and it's a good little island. It has its problems, but I love it just the same and I do miss it terribly. I hate to admit that I'm a patriot, but I am, and a rather large one. I'm hopelessly devoted to my homeland, God Save the Queen and all that. America is a nice country, it has given me a over decade of good memories and a decent job and every opportunity available to an illegal resident such as myself. Even more than I'm allotted, really. But I don't think I'll ever be ready to refer to myself as an American. Because... well, because I'm just not.

"Has INS called you, then?" I ask, not really wanting to know the answer to that question.

"No," Garret replies, but before I have time to breathe a sigh of relief, he adds, "But Renee Walcott did. She wants to know why an unnecessary autopsy was performed on James Horton. I wouldn't mind hearing the answer to that, either."

My head snaps up. "But... I thought you approved. I mean, I thought Jordan told you." I'm utterly perplexed.

"_Jordan_." He says her name as though it is the answer to everything. "I understand now. No, Nigel. Jordan did tell me, but I didn't approve. I specifically told her an autopsy wasn't necessary. James Horton committed suicide. He jumped off a building. There were witnesses in the building, on the ground, and in the air. There was no good reason for time and money to be spent doing an autopsy on him. Besides, she was a conflict of interest. I told her that if she performed an autopsy and the district attorney found out about it, there would be consequences. You know Walcott is a stickler for protocol."

"But she _didn't_ perform the autopsy," I protest. "I did."

"We know that," comes a female voice from behind me. I don't have to turn around to know it's Renee Walcott. The door slams closed behind her and I feel the hairs on my arms stand straight up. "And conveniently, there are no autopsy reports to prove it. Care to explain that, Dr. Townsend?"

I swallow heavily and dare not turn to face her. "Jordan... she just... wanted some closure, that's all. She wanted to know things... about her brother. Things only his body could tell her. She asked me to perform an autopsy and I did. I was under the impression Dr. Macy was aware of it."

Garret opens his mouth to speak, but Renee's voice comes out. The perfect ventriloquist act. "He wasn't," she snaps, and her heels click against the floor as she circles the room to stand behind Garret's chair. "But one of your co-workers was, and brought the matter to my attention. You still haven't answered my question about the autopsy report, Dr. Townsend."

My mind is busily racing, trying to think of who could have possibly ratted Jordan and I out. As far as I can remember, no one witnessed me perform the autopsy. "Ahm... Jordan said that she figured that the district attorney's office... well, that you... would see this as a breach of protocol and that it wouldn't be well accepted overall, so she suggested that we... that I... ahm... bury the paperwork."

"And even after she told you this, you didn't stop to think that maybe Dr. Macy had disapproved?"

My hands are sweating. I wipe them on my jeans. "No, I suppose... I just didn't think about it."

"You just didn't think, or you just didn't _care?_" she challenges, using the voice she uses to interrogate suspects in the courtroom. The same voice she used to interrogate me about Jordan's connection to the Jeffers case.

"I..." I'm quickly running out of excuses. "Sometimes Dr. Macy will go along with things that aren't exactly... accepted by your office, if there is a good reason for them. I guess it just didn't seem out of the ordinary that he would look the other way on this."

"Because there was a good reason for it?" she presupposes.

"Yes," I reply. "Well, I think so."

"Please, then," she says, circling the desk again and sitting on the edge of it, her hands folded in her lap too, mirroring my body language but twisting it somehow into a position of authority to use to her advantage. "Tell me the reason." I'm surprised she didn't instead say, _Tell the court the reason_.

"Well... um..." My own lack of words astonishes me, and for the first time I realize it's because I can't think of the reason. I have no idea why Jordan really wanted that autopsy done, or the faintest idea of how to begin explaining it to someone else. I just did it for her, for Jordan, no questions asked. Because she wanted me to. Because I always give Jordan what she wants. "Um..."

Renee is now wearing her _No further questions, Your Honor_ face, but she adds something despite it. "I don't need to remind you that this isn't the first time you've done something illegal for Jordan Cavanaugh, Dr. Townsend."

My entire face is boiling with embarrassment and anger. Somehow my run-in with Woody earlier seems to coincide with this. He does things for Jordan and is praised for it, but when I do things for Jordan I get prosecuted for it, or called her enabler. It isn't fair. "I know that," I say, clenching my teeth.

"I don't need to remind you that the last time you did, I arrested you for it."

"I know that," I say again.

"Why do you keep putting yourself on the line for her?" Suddenly her voice takes on a soothing, almost motherly tone. She's taking a different approach. She wants me to spill all my darkest secrets, tell her everything I've ever done to help Jordan feed her obsessions that the higher-ups haven't found out about yet. And it's almost working until she says something completely and utterly untrue. "Has it ever occurred to you that she may only be using you?"

"_No_," I cry, finally raising my head to look the horrible bitch in the eye. "Absolutely not. You just don't understand Jordan, that's all. She's committed. She's incredibly committed, to her family and to her job, and when she has a gut feeling that there's something wrong, she acts on it and does everything in her power to set things right, even if she has to break your precious protocol in the process. All she wanted was to find out a bit about her own brother. If he was drugged, or depressed, or injured, or starving. Up until a year ago, she didn't even know he existed and because of your witch hunt for him she barely had any time to get to know him at all. Her father won't tell her anything. All that was left for her to consult was James's body. She didn't do anything wrong, and neither did I, and I'd help her again and again so long as she asked me to because I trust her."

"Even if that meant continuing to break not only my precious protocol, but the law?" It seems I was duped, after all. She's planned every question she asks, and knew all of my reactions beforehand. I wonder if she's ever lost a case.

"I think so," I say before I can stop myself. "Yes. As long as I felt it was justified."

"Conspiracy to commit a crime is a serious offense in this country, Dr. Townsend." She's practically smiling now. "Especially considering your refusal to apply for citizenship thus far. I don't think INS would be pleased to know of all the crimes you've _already_ committed while helping Jordan Cavanaugh, of which there are many." She reaches behind her and produces a sheet of paper from somewhere amidst the clutter of Garret's desk and begins to read from a list. "Trespassing, breaking and entering, obstruction of justice, using morgue property and government funding for personal investigations, not to mention hacking into _numerous_ federal databases in order to acquire classified information - I understand that's your specialty. Shall I go on?"

"No," I manage to wearily croak.

"Do you feel all of this," she waves the paper in the air to acknowledge it as the subject, "Was justified?"

I take a moment to decide on an appropriate answer. In the end, I choose the truth. "Yes," I say. "I think it was."

"Well," Walcott sighs with an air of finality, and stands from the desk. "I happen to disagree with you, Dr. Townsend. Now normally all of this is enough grounds to get you fired, but I understand Dr. Macy takes a particular liking to you, and if _Jordan Cavanaugh_ still has a job here then I suppose there aren't grounds enough for anyone in the world to ever get fired from this place, no matter what they do. I am leaving the future of your employment here up to Dr. Macy. But as far as the U.S. government is concerned, I think they've given you more than enough chances to prove your worthiness. I understand you still have not applied for citizenship, and to put it in layman's terms, that is a big no-no. I put in a call to an INS agent this morning, who informed me they've been having a bit of trouble getting a hold of you lately. In any case, they asked me to pass this information along to you. You are being deported, Dr. Townsend."

The news hits me like a blow between the eyes from a boxing glove. "...What?" I ask, dumbfounded.

"Don't look so surprised. You had to know this was going to happen sooner or later. You've ignored every phone call, every letter... all of your Notices To Appear. You've been given court date after court date and haven't shown up at any of them. Judges don't usually acquit defendants who do that sort of thing. An official notice has been sent through the mail today with the exact date you are to leave the country. I would think you have at least a couple of weeks to get your affairs in order. Now once you're back in England, I'm sure you can appeal this decision and apply for a new Visa to re-enter the United States, but that process could take... well, they say thirty days, but we both know it's almost always as much as six months. Once you're back, I'd advise you to apply for citizenship immediately. You're going to need a very good lawyer for all of this. I'm sorry, but my going rate is considerably more than you can afford."

She stands from the desk and starts toward the door, as though she's finished. "Why... why are you doing this?" I barely manage to sputter.

She turns around in the doorway. "_I'm_ not doing anything. INS has you on its hit list because you've stayed here on a student Visa for well over ten years past the expiration date and have made no attempt to apply for citizenship since. I was kind enough not to inform them of your indiscretions where the law is concerned, and chances are they'll never find out because you haven't been prosecuted for any of it. They should be fairly easy on you when you appeal their decision. After all, they're out to get terrorists now, not lazy Englishmen. You're a lucky man, Dr. Townsend, but consider this a warning. You can't go through life breaking whichever rules you see fit and still expect to not suffer any consequences. Things don't work that way here. Now if you gentlemen will excuse me, I'm late for a meeting."

And then District Attorney Renee Walcott is gone, my entire life crushed beneath her authoritative taupe slingbacks.


	12. Hydrotherapy

**London After Midnight**

**DISCLAIMER: **I'm so upset. NBC finally took the Steve Valentine interview where he says Nigel has a "kind of heavy crush on Jordan" off its Crossing Jordan homepage. I guess that means no J&N action in Season Four. Also, I can't even view the new preview for Season Four because my computer is too damn ancient. Can someone who has seen it Email me like a summary of what you see on it? I know that's ghetto but I'd really appreciate it, lol. I'm screwydamexo at aol dot com.

**MANY THANKS: **Thank you **Moo**,** Brandi**, **ShadowyFigure**, and **NCCJFAN** for your continued praise. Thank you **Aesear** for laughing at Nigel poking fun of Woody in his head - I was cackling as I wrote it, and quite evilly. Thanks also for your compliments on my Bug - he was actually the first CJ character I ever played so I have a special soft spot for Buggles. And thank you **jtbwriter** for using the term "barn burner" which is so esoteric (just what IS a barn burner anyway?) but always sounds so extremely cool.

**Chapter Twelve**

**"Hydrotherapy"**

**Jordan**

I sleep until housekeeping knocks on the door at around noon, and then I jump up and rush around putting my clothes on before they let themselves in to clean up. Begrudgingly I take the twenty dollar bill Nigel left for me on the nightstand and leave, avoiding the eyes of one of the maids who undoubtedly thinks I'm a low-priced prostitute because of it.

I use the payphone on the corner to call a cab and wait in a coffee shop across the street for it to arrive, letting a waitress talk me into picking at a stale black-and-white cookie in exchange for taking up space at a stool by the counter.

At home, a small army of voicemail messages are waiting for me on both my answering machine and my cell phone, but I ignore them all at first and head straight for the bathroom, where I take off my clothes and step into a shower, lukewarm and wonderful. I haven't really felt awake up until this point. The water reminds me of the rain and the rain reminds me of last night and last night reminds me of early this morning, and I feel my whole body blossom with goosebumps at the memories. Reaching down to get a good grip on the porcelain rim of the tub, I lower myself to sit Indian-style directly underneath the flow of the shower head, something I do sometimes when I need to think. There's something serene and natural about it, like sitting beneath a waterfall by a quiet temple in Japan. The shower water drips from my hair down my brow and catches on my eyelashes, so I lower my head and watch the droplets bead off and splash against my skin.

I slept with Nigel Townsend last night. But not just that. We didn't just sleep together. It wasn't so much a sexual act as it was a realization of something that had been there all along. Respect and adoration and... love. I told him I loved him this morning while I was still sleepy but I don't regret it at all. The way he made me feel last night... the way he _always_ makes me feel, no matter where we are or what we're doing. Safe and young and happy. All good feelings when I'm with Nigel. It's right. I know that it's right and I didn't make a mistake.

Knowing all of this makes me grow anxious to see him again. He's probably at lunch right now or maybe working through it. I wonder if he's thinking about me. I wonder if any of the messages are from him.

None of them are. I stand by the counter in my little kitchenette, dripping on the floor and holding my towel closed with one fist, and I listen to each message in succession. One from Dad, three telemarketers, a hang-up, and precisely five from Woody Hoyt. One, two, three, four, five. Count them. Five. He says pretty much the same thing in all of them, too. _Jordan, if you're there, please pick up. I've been trying to get a hold of you all night. We really need to talk. About everything. Call me as soon as you get this message_. I don't call him. I probably should, but I don't want to. I know I owe him an apology and he probably wants to give me one, too, and I should just get the whole thing over with so everything can go back to normal again. But the thing is, I'm not so sure I want things to go back to normal. I'm not so sure about normal anymore. I don't think normal is what I want. Besides, it would feel wrong somehow, calling Woody after this morning with Nigel. Probably because I know it won't just be a mutual apology. He'll want to talk about... well, about _us_. He _always_ wants to talk about us. In my office he told me he wasn't stupid and he knew I wasn't interested, but I have to wonder how much of that he really meant. I don't think he'd leave five messages on my answering machine if he really meant it.

The last message in the bunch is from the ocean. At least, that's the first recognizable sound; waves lapping onto the shore. A sea gull squawking somewhere off in the distance. I know who it is before he even says a word. Tyler.

_Hey, Jo. It's me. You hear that? It's the Pacific, calling you home. Do you still think about it, Jo? Whenever I'm away from it for more than a few days I get this weird sensation of being right in the middle of it, the water pulsating around my body, waves coming up over my head and taking me under. Hydrotherapy, Jo. It's better than any vice. Anyway. Um. So the wife and I gave birth last week. Nah, she did all the work really, I just kind of stood there gobsmacked, staring at the miracle of life acting itself out right in front of my eyes. It was a girl and she's... she's totally incredible, Jo. Totally awesome. This little peanut nugget with bright red hair and big blue eyes... I'm like, in love. I mean it, Jo, she's the one. I'll Email you some pics of her. We named her August Jordan. So like, even if you never come back to California, your legacy lives on. Hopefully she doesn't turn out to be as much of a handful as you were, though. But whatever. Hope you're doing okay out there in Beantown. Send me a can of Heinz when you get a chance. Peace_.

I wasn't prepared for that today. I haven't heard from Tyler in a really long time, not since he sent me an invitation to his wedding almost two years ago. It's strange to hear from him now, to have him tell me he's a father, that he has a little girl and her middle name is my first. It's weird to think about Tyler having a baby with some woman when just two short years ago we were both too commitment-phobic to even think about moving in together, let alone having kids. I don't know. It's just weird, and it leaves me with the incredibly undeniable awareness of getting old. I'm thirty-five and I don't think I've ever really had a serious relationship in my life. I've fallen for a married man and a future priest. I've had all kinds of casual sex. But I've never experienced anything that could last. Tyler was the closest I ever got to anything real and when he came up to Boston I blindfolded him, spun him around a few times, then turned him in the direction of California and gave him a good hard shove.

I'm sitting on the couch now but I'm not really sure when it was that I crossed the room. I'm completely engrossed in the fact that Tyler is married with a baby and I'm still just fucked up Jordan Cavanaugh with absolutely no plans for the future.

Except there's Nigel. It's still so new that it's going to take me by surprise every time I remember it. But yes, I have Nigel. And it's not just casual sex, and he's not married or even remotely religious, and I'm not afraid of him. That's the most important part, I'm not afraid to get close to Nigel Townsend. We're so close already that we're just making everything even better than it was, and there isn't anything scary about it. I could get serious with Nigel.

_I'm so in love with you, Jordan. I'm so in love with you that when I see you in the mornings, I feel faint_.

Yeah. I think I could get _very_ serious with Nigel. I also think maybe I made that decision long before this moment, because it just occurred to me that we didn't use protection last night.

We didn't, and I didn't even think about it. I wasn't drunk, at least not so much that I could forget something like that. It was more like I just didn't care. Like it wasn't important, or at least not as important as being with Nigel. He didn't remember, either, because I'm sure if he was thinking about it he would have stopped somewhere on the way to the room. We were both just so focused on each other that we didn't think of anything else. _That's_ serious. That's serious, and if I don't get my period next week like I'm supposed to, it's going to be even more serious.

I don't have time to lament on that for much longer, because almost as soon as the thought pops into my head, there is a knock at my front door. I'm still not wearing anything but my bath towel, so I stand quickly and start an immediate search for clothes. "Gimme a second!" I call out as I head to my bedroom.

"It's me, love!" the door replies, and I make an abrupt U-turn and pass the couch again.

"Are you alone?" I ask when I reach the doorway, my hand curling around the knob but not turning it yet.

"Um... no, actually, I've brought my good friend Johnny Walker with me."

I can't help but smile. "Is he black?" I ask, without missing a beat.

"Is there any other kind?" he replies incredulously.

"Good answer," I say. If Nigel had brought red label scotch to my apartment, I'd have him flogged to death. "Isn't it kind of early for Johnny to be paying a visit?"

A brief moment of silence. "Actually, under the circumstances, I believe he's right on time."

At the seriousness of his tone, I quickly turn the knob and let the door swing open. Nigel stands leaning against the wall in clean clothes, different ones from this morning. A t-shirt layered over a thermal shirt and a pair of beaten-up brown slacks with pinstripes on them. Sure enough, hooked in the crook of his elbow is one of those plastic liquor store shopping bags with a yellow smiley face and the phrase _Have A Nice Day!_ printed on it. Everything about Nigel's expression tells me he is most definitely not having a nice day.

"What happened?" I ask, but I can barely get the words out before he steps forward and folds his lanky body down over mine, his arms gathering me up in an embrace. But they're limp, and I get the impression that he wants me to hug him, rather than the other way around. I wrap my arms around his shoulders and squeeze. He smells just like he did last night. I breathe in deeply before continuing. "It's not even two o'clock, why'd you leave work so early?"

He pulls away enough to bring his hands up and tuck one corner of the towel snugly between my breasts so I don't have to hold it closed. It is, in a weird way, fatherly. But maybe I just have fathers on the brain today. Nigel doesn't answer my question but moves instead to the coffee table and sets down the bag. I push the front door closed, watching him as he rifles through the contents.

"I've brought some things for us," he announces, avoiding my question thus far. "Besides the Johnny, but here that is." He produces a slim brown paper bag and from that, a tall cylindrical bottle of Black Label, dark amber and gorgeous in the light. The perfect present. I retrace my steps to the kitchen and open an overhead cabinet to take out two glasses. "I've also got a couple of CD's I burned the other day. One of them's an Eighties mix, it's absolutely fantastic. You'll love it. Ahm... what else... some menus in case we want to order in supper later. Oh yes, and condoms."

The way he says it makes me bite back laughter - he just slipped it in like I wouldn't notice. If I comment on it, he'll probably get embarrassed. Instead, I look up at him and ask, "On the rocks?"

"Yes, please," he replies. I open the freezer and fill only one glass with ice - I like mine straight up - before bringing both to the coffee table. One hand wraps automatically around the neck of the bottle and I bring it close, twisting off the cap with my free hand.

"Love," Nigel continues as I pour out shots for both of us. "I wondered if perhaps, since we didn't have time this morning to shower together, you'd like to have a bath with me?"

I can't help but smile. It's such a completely random question but Nigel makes it sound so profoundly British that I find myself wondering if people ask each other for mutual bathtime regularly in England. "Have a bath with you?" I echo, glancing over at him to decide if he's serious.

"Certainly," he replies. "No monkey business. We can just sit there. It'll be weird, and lovely." He reaches for his drink and takes a sip. "Bleh. Bloody fucking awful, that is," he cringes. In response, I raise my glass and chase its contents down my throat without so much as flinching. Nigel smiles. "We'll finish it in the tub, yes? Come on, love, it's not like it's going to take much effort on your part." To prove his point, Nigel's fingers go to the little corner of towel he tucked in for me and expertly flick it open again so that I have to throw my arms around myself to keep it from falling to the floor.

"All right, you crazy bastard," I relent, my smile widening despite my suspicions about this little visit. "Go run the water. I'll bring in the booze."

Nigel's smile fades suddenly, and he steps forward to embrace me again, his lips brushing against my temple in a brief kiss. "Don't worry, love, I'll tell you everything." His voice is serious again, a hushed whisper. I press my lips against the bulbous little hill of his adam's apple to return his affection before he pulls away to start for the bathroom.

When he's left the room and I hear the water beginning to run, I slip the towel off and reach for my glass of scotch and the bottle. I'm just about to follow after Nigel when a sudden attack of preparedness overtakes me and I tuck the bottle in the crook of my elbow and grab the little box of condoms with my free hand.

My little bathtub doesn't take long to fill, and I have to wonder how we're both going to comfortably fit inside it. When I enter the room, Nigel is taking his shirts off and littering them on the floor. It still feels a little weird, being naked in front of him, but he doesn't seem to mind, studying me with a small smile playing on his lips. He steps forward and takes the liquor off my hands, setting my glass on the wide rim of the tub next to his and the bottle on the floor.

"I thought I said no monkey business," he softly remarks, his fingers transferring the contents of my hand into his.

"Just in case," I reply. He shoves the little box in his back pocket and my free hands go to the zipper on his slacks. "Tell me what's going on."

His fingers comb through my hair, half-dry and curling. I take off the rest of his clothes.

"I was called in to Dr. Macy's office this morning," he begins, using his heels to slide off his Converse sneakers, and then his socks. While he speaks, I let my eyes roam over his body, looking the same as it did last night. Pale ivory straight through, no blemishes and hardly any hair. His ribs are just visible below his skin, as well as the sharp protrusions of his hipbones. His stomach is flat and his navel is long and deep, his waist curved subtly inward almost like a woman's. His thighs are slender, his nipples pinkish-beige, his shoulders broad but bony. It's a beautiful body, soft and streamlined and sexual. I don't know why he's so self-conscious about it.

"He started asking me a lot of questions about immigration," Nigel continues, pulling me out of my observation. "And reminded me I haven't applied for citizenship yet."

A feeling of dread drops like a bomb in the pit of my stomach. "Wait a minute," I interrupt him as we hold onto each other for balance in order to step over the rim of the tub. "Garret didn't call INS... did he?" It's so weird, talking about Garret while we climb into a bathtub together.

"No," he replies, and settles himself down first, stretching his long legs out in front of him and resting his shoulders against the tiled wall. My tub isn't very long but it is deep, the water comes just about up to Nigel's chest. He gazes at me for a moment before reaching up with both hands to help me maneuver myself down. "But Walcott did. I don't think she cared too much for my autopsy on your brother."

The ball of dread grows a little bit larger, burning as an accoutrement to the scotch. "Yeah," I begin, ignoring his arms for now. "Listen, about that, Nige... I'm sorry I made you go behind Macy's back. I didn't mean to get you in trouble." God, listen to me. How many times have I said that to Nigel over the years? It sounds canned and insincere. "I know I always say that. It's stupid of me to even get you involved in this shit because you're always taking the fall for me and I don't want you to do that anymore. I don't want you to think I'm using you. Because I'm not. Really. I don't know why I always come to you. I guess because you know what you're doing. You're really good at what you do, Nige. The best. I mean, better than me sometimes. And I respect that. I respect you. And I trust you more than anyone else. I don't know who I would go to if I couldn't come to you about things."

He straightens up further and clasps his hands around mine. "Lay down with me, love." There's a kind of desperation in his eyes that makes it difficult to resist. I intertwine my fingers with his and lower myself down, my body slipping beneath the water. I stretch myself out all along the length of his legs, my chin just above the surface, my brow nuzzling his neck. His arms go around my waist and every movement is slow and feather soft because of the warm liquid surrounding us both.

"I'm sorry," I say again.

"Sshh, love, I don't care that I got in trouble." He loosens one hand to bring it up to my hair, gently cupping the base of my skull in his palm with each stroke. "It isn't going to hurt me. Walcott didn't say anything about our many misadventures to the INS. She only phoned them to get information on me, I think. Find out if I was legal yet. The fact is, I've been ignoring them for quite some time. Not a very smart move on my part, I'm afraid. Now that they've finally gotten in contact with me, and through the district attorney's office at that, I don't think I have much choice but to obey their orders."

My hand floats up above the surface of the water and curls around his shoulder, stroking the skin there with my thumb. "What do they want you to do?" I quietly ask.

The only sound in the bathroom for a long stretch of time is the dripping faucet. "They want me to leave," Nigel finally answers, his voice barely more than a whisper. "I'm being deported."

I raise my head from his neck so I can find his eyes. "They can't do that to you. I mean, it's got to be some kind of mistake. Walcott was probably just fucking with you. It's probably just a threat. To scare you out of helping me anymore, or to make you go to the police about me or something."

His smile is grim, apologetic. "I don't think so, love." He shakes his head.

"Wait a minute," I say again. My head is spinning, thoughts begetting new thoughts at top speed. I'm finding it extremely difficult to process this. "Did Garret fire you?"

Again he shakes his head. "Not exactly, though I was asked to leave. Temporary sabbatical, I think was what he called it. Extended absence without pay. Something of that nature. He said we could discuss my employment opportunities when I get back into the country."

"And when is that going to be?" I can feel panic beginning to worm its way up into my throat.

"I... don't rightly know," he sighs. "I've never been through this before. Walcott said it could take as much as six months. I'm inclined to believe her."

"Six months..." It's a figure so tremendous that I can't even fully comprehend it. I can't do six months. Six months is not going to work for me. Too much can happen in six months. We only just started this, it isn't fair. "Okay," I say. "Okay. What can we do to make the process as short as possible?"

"Well," he replies thoughtfully, staring at the dripping faucet. "Once I'm back in England, I suppose if I establish that I have very strong ties to the States, it will help speed things along. Thankfully I still have my job, so I can have Dr. Macy speak on my behalf about that. I've got friends, and a roommate..."

"And you've got me," I interject, my touch moving from his shoulder to one of his big ears. I tug on it gently, my fingers strumming over the little silver hoops that decorate the lobe. I make them clink together. Ear-music. "Maybe I can do something. Maybe we should..."

The idea clobbers me in the back of my head like the largest volume of the Encyclopedia Britannica. I bite my lip against it at first, unsure if I should vocalize it. It has the potential to change everything in any number of ways, and I don't know how he'd react. Plus, I mean, it would just be so... _obvious_. I wonder if he expects me to say it. I wonder if he's _hoping_ I'll say it.

"Maybe I..." I begin, deciding to phrase it in a slightly different way. "...Should tell them we're engaged."

His eyes widen a bit and he shifts in the water, speechless for the moment. I turn from my side to my stomach, our chests stacked on top of each other. Nigel's hands go to the small of my back and begin to pet it soothingly, bending both of his knees to give me more room and cradle me at the same time. I watch his lips, waiting for a response.

It's a while before I get one. "I don't want to make you do that, love."

"You're not," I reply. "It's my idea."

He's quiet again for a few moments. "But it isn't true."

My hands go to either side of his neck, massaging it gently with my fingers. "I know," I softly say. His reaction to this is kind of baffling. I assumed he'd be all for it - I mean, he did ask me to do this for him once before. I see now that maybe I should have. Nigel would have been a citizen for real and we wouldn't be going through this now. Who knows, maybe we'd even still be married, living together, best friends with a weird, unexpected relationship. But I guess it doesn't matter. We're doing it now, after all, and it's better like this. It's real.

"They wouldn't know it, though," I add, despite his reluctance. "It could seem true to them. We've known each other for so long. We know everything about each other, and you're always helping me out, and everyone could attest to how close we are. And now... there's all _this_ between us, and..." I catch myself starting to smile. "It's just an option, Nigel. Wow, who knew you'd be so against marrying me."

His arms tighten around my waist. "I'm not against it, Jordan," he insists, his voice sounding much firmer than before. "Yes, it's an option, and it's a very good one - undoubtedly INS would buy right into it and maybe I could be back in America in thirty days, but..." He sighs and goes quiet again. "It wouldn't be true for us, that's all. If I ever... if it ever happened for us, I wouldn't want it to be like that. It should be the real thing."

My smile is wider, my hands creeping up to either of his cheeks. I pull myself further up along his body, my mouth drawing closer to his. "This is the real thing, Nige," I whisper, my lips brushing against his in a warm, brief kiss. "Let me come with you to England."

His lips fumble around with mine as I speak, his eyes sliding closed. "Are you serious?" he mumbles into our kisses.

"Yeah," I reply, my tongue sliding against his and then quickly retreating. "For a few weeks. I have a lot of vacation time saved up. I can stay with you and help you get through to INS. Or I can talk to them here first and get the ball rolling, then fly out and meet you there. Come on, Nige. I make you do so many things for me, and I'm partially what got you into this mess in the first place. Let me do something for you. Just because I tell them we're engaged doesn't mean we have to get married. We can wait for it... to be the real thing."

He opens his eyes halfway, smiling cryptically and gazing at me from just beneath those thin ebony lashes. "It will be one day, Jordan Cavanaugh. One of these days, I'm going to ask you."

I think of Tyler and August Jordan, his little red-haired baby girl down in California.

"I know," I whisper in return, and when I kiss him this time, it seems to seal our promise.


	13. The Awkward Sense of Disruption

**London After Midnight**

**DISCLAIMER:** SO upset. Got my TV Guide on Tuesday and it's positively plastered with pictures of Jordan and Woody. All the Crossing Jordan advertisements allude to them finally getting together this season. That means a WHOLE new crop of J&W fics are going to start popping up on here and totally bury me. All us J&N writers need to band together and totally bombard this site with J&N fics. Revolt!!

**MANY THANKS:** Thank you **Moo**, **Aesear**, and **Brandi** for your continued praise. Thank you **ShadowyFigure** - I'd go to Mars with Nigel too lol. And gladly. Thanks **NCCJFAN** for the definition of barn burner and for applying such a tremendous phrase to this story. I'm glad I'm converting you a little. Thanks **Watson** for your honest review. I actually didn't _feel_ like I was floundering, but I'm glad you at least liked my last chapter.

**Chapter Thirteen**

**"The Awkward Sense of Disruption"**

**Nigel**

We stay in the bath for an hour more at least, perhaps even two, cuddling and drinking without toasting, something I very rarely do. Where I come from, we toast always, even if it's not more than a prayer to make it back home without being picked up for public intoxication. But today, even with my whole life on the brink of tedious, exhaustive change, I can't seem to find anything to wish for. Everything I need is right here with me already.

The water grows cold once so we let it out and fill the tub up again, Jordan switching positions and laying on her back against the porcelain. She reaches for me and I throw one arm over the rim while we kiss, my fingers fishing around blindly for the back pocket of my trousers. Then I make love to her, swiftly and ardently, until she yells my name and water sloshes onto the bathroom floor, soaking my clothes.

We sleep for a time. A soggy little catnap, just Jordan and I. Until the water grows cold again and all our fingertips are wrinkled; then I stand, taking both of her hands to pull her up. We hold onto each other and the sink and the walls as we untangle our legs from the bath and step out onto the slippery tile floor. Jordan gives me a fresh towel from her linen closet, plush black and smelling like her, patchouli and sweet pea and tangerine. I wrap it around my waist and tuck it in, all the while watching her retrieve my t-shirt from the floor, the only article of clothing far enough away from the bathtub to avoid being drenched by its rocky seas. She pulls it on as though she purchased it especially for herself, tugging her wet curls from the collar and smoothing out the creases. It hangs nearly down to her knees and looks infinitely better on her than it ever has on me.

We move back to the living room and she puts on my Eighties mix, giving an excited gasp at the first track and pulling me off the couch to dance with her. Me in my towel and Jordan in my t-shirt, dancing to "Bizarre Love Triangle" by New Order. I spin her around and around and when she gets too dizzy she collapses against the sofa, content in just singing blithely along with the music.

"_Everytime I see you falling, I get down on my knees and pray_..."

We drink far more than we should so early in the evening, finishing off the bottle at around five. I can't quite remember the last time either one of us got up for any reason, but I'm beginning to seriously doubt my ability to stand. The whole world wobbles on its axis when I lurch to the side in order to gather Jordan in my arms, and I nearly slump off the couch to the floor in the process. We've reached the last track on the CD, "Come On Eileen," ah yes, I remember this one. I knew a girl named Eileen around the time the song came out, a miniature Irish lass no taller than my collar, pale as the moon with long apricot-colored hair laid out down her back. Her eyelashes were white and I lost my virginity to her in my best friend Algernon's bunk bed at a party while he was passed out on the mattress above our heads, snoring like a cartoon bear. He leaned over to throw up once and a little bit got in her hair. I took her to the loo to wash it out afterwards. I remember. I remember.

"Jordan," I mumble, my head resting on her narrow shoulder, my face pressed into her neck. I have both arms tucked securely around her little waist. "You'll love England, dear. I'm glad you're going."

"Will you take me to Piccadilly Circus?" she asks, her words slurred and soft. Her arms are strewn across my back, cradling me. "And Buckingham Palace? And Abbey Road? Where else... where else... Scotland Yard, I always wanted to see Scotland Yard. I want to ride on a red bus and stand in a red phone booth and eat something with a weird name. Will you do all that with me?"

Quietly I laugh, tickled by her candid fascination. "Yes," I promise. "We'll do all of it. We'll do everything together. I'll even pretend to be American and we can ask the natives stupid questions to see how quickly we can rile them up. How's that, love?"

"Splendid, love," she replies in an imitation of my accent, turning her cheek to rest against my forehead. Then, in her regular voice, "Where will we stay?"

"Hm," I reply, having not quite thought about lodging yet. "Well, I certainly won't have enough money for a hotel. We'll have to stay with my family, I suppose. Not my father's side, though. We'll stay with me mum's younger sister. My Auntie Bea. You'll like her, I think. She's a bit... out there. She was a hippie, actually. Used to live in San Francisco for a time, in the seventies. Then she had some children and moved back to London to open a tea shop on Sydney Street. Now that I remember it, above the tea shop used to be an apartment that she would sublet every so often. Perhaps if it isn't in use right now, she'd let us have it. I'll have to ring her tomorrow. Hopefully my cousin isn't living in it."

"You have a cousin?" Jordan inquires, shifting to relax against the back of the couch so she can look at me.

"Indeed," I smile slightly, reminiscing. "Two of them, actually. But I haven't been home in almost fifteen years, so one of them I haven't even met yet. A little girl, though I don't recall her name." My smile fades guiltily. "It isn't right, really. I should know her name. She's a teenager by now. I suppose it's good I'm going back, it'll give me a chance to reconnect."

Her fingers brush against my cheek, then drift up into my hairline and sweep away damp strands. "What's the other one like, the one you know?"

"Well, that's Duncan, he's... Christ, about twenty-nine now. The last time I saw him he was eleven. I was in the Royal Navy at that time, so I'd brought him round to see my ship and meet the crew and all that. Auntie Bea didn't want me to; she didn't believe in the military. But Duncan had an odd penchant for that sort of thing. Typical eleven-year-old boy, I suppose, though last I heard he never went into the military. He became a professional chef. Hangs around with Jamie Olivier and everything. I guess you never can tell." I give a lighthearted shrug and sigh. "I've been in America far too long. Home feels so far away."

"Doesn't this feel like home to you though?" Jordan softly asks, shifting again, burying her face against my shoulder. "Boston? Your job? Your friends?"

I tighten both arms about her, wishing I could take back what I've just said. _You_ feel like home to me, Jordan. I feel more comfortable and safe in this moment than I've ever felt in my life. "Yes, it's home here, too. A different kind of home. I wasn't born here but I made a place for myself here. It's weird that I'm being kicked out after all this time. Especially since I was finally starting to feel settled. Everything finally fell into place."

We're quiet for a long time after that, my arms around the unfamiliar texture of my t-shirt on Jordan's little body, her arms warming my bare back. The song ends and we sit there in pleasant silence, lost in thought and lost in each other, until a loud, sudden knocking at the door begins to hammer at my brain.

"Oh no," Jordan murmurs, stirring from my arms. "People." I reluctantly release my hold on her as she fumbles for the edge of the coffee table to pull herself up. Once standing, she takes less than a handful of steps, swaying violently with each one, before she crumbles to the floor.

"Aww, look at you, love," I cry, grinning in appreciative amusement as I lurch to my feet to help her. "You're smashed." I soon discover, however, that my balance isn't what it used to be either, and I have to stagger slowly but steadily in order to remain upright. The room swings back and forth like a pendulum. "Bloody hell, so am I."

Jordan seems to find this hilarious, as she is sitting up on the carpet with her shoulders shaking, her cheeks bright red with laughter. I reach her eventually and extend both hands for her to take, but she refuses, peals of her laughter still ringing off the walls. Whoever is at the door can surely hear us. "Come on, love," I plead, grabbing her underneath her arms and beginning to hoist her to a stand. "Up we go, then."

"Okay," she gasps between giggles, leaning heavily against me. "Okay. I'm sorry. I'm okay. I'm just gonna go answer the door now." She pushes away from me, reeling backwards a few paces before knocking right into the closed apartment door. It makes a loud banging sound, the rusty hinges rattling, Jordan's laughing fit refreshed and starting all over again.

"Jordan, is that you?" A familiar voice from the other side of the door. "Is everything okay in there?"

"It's _Woody_," Jordan mouths the words, but no sound emerges, just silent, hysterical laughter. Then I can't contain it any longer; I, too, double over, all the breath in my lungs escaping in a snort that turns into a series of snickering. We're like two troublemaking little children, Jordan and I, hiding from this kid that we both love to torment, unable to contain our amusement and satisfaction at the mischief we create.

Her hand goes for the doorknob.

"Don't answer it!" I hiss, gesturing wildly against it. "We can't open the door like this."

"Why not?" she whispers back, all traces of laughter suddenly wiped clean from her face and replaced with mock innocence. "I'm decent."

"_I'm_ not!" I cry, wrapping the towel tighter around my waist. "Bugger all, go ahead and answer it then, you wasted slut. Shall I hide?"

"Hide?" she echoes, furrowing her brows. "Why would you hide? No... no, just go put your clothes back on." She starts for the doorknob again and then turns back abruptly, as if remembering something. "And I'm not a slut," she hisses. "You are."

I scoff audibly before retreating into the bathroom, the chorus of Woody's pounding on the door and yelling, "Jordan, are you _in_ there?" continuing to sing out. I roll my eyes and begin gathering up my clothes, not as soaked-through as they were an hour ago but still fairly wet. I loathe to put them back on, would much rather walk back out there completely naked, sit down, and not say a word the entire time. Let the detective draw his own conclusions. The very thought causes me to giggle, but then I hear the door creak open and stifle myself, wanting to be very quiet so I can hear each word exchanged between my arch-rival and my...

Yes, I do believe Jordan is my girlfriend now. I'll have to ask her to make sure, but I'm fairly certain that's what this is. Jordan is my girlfriend. I can feel myself blush at the notion like the teenager I once was. Bloody hell, but wouldn't Bug flip if he knew? I'll have to ring him up to tell him at my earliest convenience. Undoubtedly he won't even believe me.

"Good evening, Detective," says Jordan, my girlfriend, in greeting. I can't help but imagine her standing out there in nothing but my t-shirt, her hair damp and rumpled. I zip up my trousers, button the fly. "What can I do for you?"

I step closer to the bathroom door, opening it a crack so I can listen more intently. "Is everything okay with you, Jordan? I mean, I've been calling you all night with no answer... then it takes you five minutes to open the door, I'm standing here hearing all these weird noises and..." He takes a brief pause. "Have you been partying or something?"

A grin spreads wide across my face. I slip my arms into the sleeves of my thermal. I could walk into the room right now if I wanted, answer Woody's question for him without even speaking. I don't, though. Something keeps me rooted to the spot.

"Just a little," Jordan replies, slurring her _s_ and sounding cheerful about it. "It's kind of like a... private party." I enjoy that comment, myself. I'm still smiling as I pull my shirt over my head and smooth it down the length of my chest.

"It's a little early in the day for scotch, isn't it?" Either Woodrow entered the apartment and saw the bottle or leaned close enough to Jordan to smell it. She must let that remark slide, for Woody continues speaking. "Listen, maybe we could talk. Do you want to get dressed? We could grab dinner. Or I could just come in. I really want to talk about some things. I think we owe it to each other."

My smile fades immediately, the hairs on the scruff of my neck beginning to bristle up again like they did this morning. Only this time, I'm most positively in a situation where I will be able to mark my territory if I so please. I barely have time to prepare myself before I'm grabbing the doorknob and giving it a good yank. Both girlfriend and arch-rival look up, and suddenly I'm thrust into an extremely rare role - the center of attention.

I love it. I bask in it. I positively eat it up.

"'Allo, Woodrow," I holler across the room at him, grinning from ear to ear. "What brings you round this neck of the woods, then, eh?" I stand in the bathroom doorway with one hand pressed against the wall and one long leg crossed over the other.

It doesn't take him long. I catch the flicker of understanding in his eyes right away, watch the muscles in his jaw flex themselves a few times before he smiles too, a grin wide enough to compete with mine. "Just touching base," is his altogether too chipper reply. "_Nigel_." Making a point of saying my name very firmly, like I did something I wasn't supposed to. "I guess I could ask you the same question."

My cheeks are starting to ache with the responsibility of all this grinning. I shrug both shoulders in an overly casual manner, folding my arms across my chest as I take a step into the room. "Oh, I dunno..." My accent seems even more pronounced when compared with Woody's white-bred, middle-American lilt. I have to wonder if I'm subconsciously exaggerating it as a way of intimidating him. "S'pose I just needed a bit of cheerin' up, that's all. Twasn't the best of days, today."

"Nigel's getting deported," Jordan chimes in, dear silly drunken girl, sounding as if she's trying to be helpful.

Woody's tight smile still plastered on his face, a twinkle of real mirth appearing in his eyes at the prospect of my leaving the country. "Well, is that so?"

"Indeed, it certainly appears that way," I reply, taking a few more steps, and then a few more, until I'm standing directly behind Jordan. I don't put my hands on her; undoubtedly she'd see that as a possessive move and wouldn't be too pleased about it, even smashed as she is. I keep my arms across my chest, but I do straighten to my full height - maybe a challenge, maybe a threat. "Jordan's made plans to join me in London. That is, until my appeal goes through and I can get a new Visa to re-enter the States. Isn't that right, love?"

"Yeah," she agrees, and I do believe Jordan's is the only genuine smile in the room. It's beautiful, really. My favourite smile. It lights up her whole face and makes her look like a little kid. "I kind of always wanted to see England. And after everything that's happened... I just really need a vacation. So... we're going to go." She glances at me over her shoulder just once, and then, bless her - _bless her, bless her, bless her_ - she reaches both hands behind her back and grabs my arms, pulling them out of their tangled position and wrapping them around her waist. She does it right in front of Woody Hoyt, for bollocks sake! I'm gobsmacked. I'm practically swooning. I'm convinced she hung the moon. My dear, dear girl. I've never wanted to kneel down and worship Jordan Cavanaugh more than I do at this very moment.

Woody closes his mouth and flexes the muscles in his jaw a few more times, his eyes still twinkling, but it's different now - like the hard glitter of radio tubes out of the back of an old CB. A cold and agitated glint. He doesn't say anything for a really long time. I busy myself with fixing my arms so they fit around Jordan's stomach perfectly; jigsaw puzzle pieces pressing together. She covers my hands with her own. I can't wait to take her to bed.

"Private party, huh?" is what Woody finally says, and then his laughter fills the room. My head snaps up, my smile finally fading. "Wait a second, wait a second. I get it now. You guys are yanking my chain, aren't you? Wow, you really had me going for a minute back there. _Private party_. That's really funny. So are you finished fixing Jordan's computer, Nigel? Do you mind if I steal her away for some Chinese?"

I have to take a moment to ensure he really just said that and this isn't all just some drunken hallucination. I react to his question in the same order of emotions as I would if he had punched me in the mouth - shock, pain, anger, retaliation. Jordan starts to say something but I open my mouth and talk right over her, loudly, and I get the inkling that if I didn't have so much liquor in me I probably wouldn't say anything at all. Maybe I would have just let Jordan handle things and gone back to the couch to sulk. But those days are through. I will let myself get trampled upon by Woodrow Hoyt no longer. I am not a push-over anymore.

"Actually, yes, I do mind," I practically growl, my nostrils flaring, my face growing hot. "I mind very much, and no, I am not over here to _fix Jordan's computer_." I spit the words out, despising the taste of them. I'm torn between squeezing Jordan closer to me and pushing her away in order to get right up into Woody's face. In the end, I decide to take my arms from her body and step aside, but I don't go any closer to Woody just yet.

"Is it so inconceivable to you," I continue, breathing heavily through my nose now - I can just imagine my countenance being that of a raging bull; if Woody held up something red I would surely charge him. "That I could be anything more than Jordan's Internet lackey? Does it really seem so ridiculous that I'm a real person with feelings? That I have feelings for _Jordan_, and I have since you were still in the bloody academy back in the boonies of Wisconsin!" I grind my teeth and flex my own goddamned jaw muscles a few times. "_Fix her computer_. You fucking wanker!"

I take a threatening step forwards, uncertain of exactly what I intend to do, but then Jordan's hand is there on my wrist, urging me not to go any further. I don't intend to disobey her wishes but before I can stop myself I wrench my arm away from her and grab the collar of Woodrow's jacket in both fists, too riled up to even see straight.

"Hey! Whoa! Whoa!" Woody holds both palms up, calm and rational. Of course calm and rational, and that makes me even angrier than before. Everything about Woodrow Hoyt has always made me angry, and I'm sick of keeping it all inside. I don't want to anymore. "Jordan, would you tell him to chill out??"

"Nigel, come on." Her voice is soft behind my shoulder. I barely hear her. The power surging through my blood is phenomenal. I feel like I could do anything. I feel as if I _should_.

"If you've got something to say," I begin, glaring at those pretty boy turquoise eyes. "Then why don't you say it directly to me, instead of speaking around me like I'm not here? I'm not nothing, Detective. I won't be a piece of background scenery any longer just so you can play the hero all the time." I'm not positive what it is I'm talking about anymore, and yet at the same time I'm more sure of these words than I have ever been of any others. Things I've wanted to say for a very long time.

Testing my strength, now. I give Woodrow a good hard shove against the partly open door. It slams shut with the force of his body. I grab up his collar again. I have no bloody clue what I'm doing. It's... _exhilarating_.

"What do you think of that, then? Eh?"

Woodrow's nostrils are flaring now, too, his entire face red. I hear Jordan say my name again from somewhere behind me; I feel her delicate fingers tug at my shirt. "I think you're fucking crazy," the detective responds, that annoyance-furrow welding itself deep between his brows. "I think you're fucking crazy, and jealous, and pathetic. I also think you need to take your hands off me, you fucking freak, before I arrest you."

My hands pick him off the door and slam him against it again. The hinges rattle and clang. "What the fuck did you just call me?" My voice is verging on hysteria.

"_Nigel_," comes Jordan's voice, her arms around my waist, trying to pry me away. "Christ, he's on duty. He _can_ arrest you. Calm _down_."

"I called you a freak," Woody replies, his voice nowhere near faltering or showing any sign of trepidation whatsoever. "And crazy and jealous and pathetic. Jordan, you're not really going to England with him, are you? He fucking got himself _deported_. He's too much of a loser to even apply for citizenship and you're going to leave the country with him?" The entire time he speaks to Jordan, he's looking directly into my eyes. "Have you even noticed how he is with you? He's like some kind of _stalker_."

"Fuck off," I growl, resisting with every muscle in my body the urge to spit on him. Testosterone is running rampant through me, lacing every instinct, and all I want to do is pull my fist back and smash his chipmunk face in. Jordan yanks harder at my waist, far stronger than before. Reluctantly I release Woodrow's collar, my pride wounded as I stagger backwards a few steps. "Fuck you."

"That's _enough_." It's Jordan's turn now, and I'm convinced she's speaking to me. I hang down my head, staring at my own strange, pale toes against the dark carpet and preparing for admonishment. My eyes flicker upward when she goes to the door, fully expecting her to throw her arms around Woodrow, perhaps ask if he's all right. Instead she wraps one hand around the doorknob and flings it open so hard that it bangs against the wall. "I think you should leave."

I swallow hard, but the lump that's developed in my throat refuses to go down. That's it, then. I've blown it. I had everything I could have possibly wanted and I let it all go down the toilet just because I'm a drunken sod who can't keep his mouth shut and isn't thinking with the right head. This is more than I can possibly take. To be shot down by Jordan Cavanaugh is one thing, but to have it done in front of Woodrow Hoyt... I'm castrated. Emasculated. Crucified. I can't bear it.

"All right, love," I say, all traces of rage having fizzled out of me. My voice is barely louder than a whisper. "Just let me get my shoes on, then."

Her head snaps up; she looks at me over her shoulder. "_Not_ you," she clarifies, returning her stony stare to the doorway. "_Woody_, I think you should leave."

"...What?" He sounds as dumbstruck as I feel. "But Jordan... come on..."

"That was too much. Okay? What you said. You went too fucking far and I want you to go." She has one hand on her hip; the other is flush at her side. Her back is facing me again and I can't see her expression, but I know she means business. "I don't even know why you came here in the first place. If I wanted to talk to you I would have called you back. You're too pushy, Woody. You're always pushing me to talk about things that I don't want to talk about, like maybe if you badger me enough I'll tell you what you want to hear. But that's not going to happen, okay? I'm telling you right now that it's not going to happen because I don't feel those things, so I'm not going to say them. And yes, I am going to England with Nigel. Because I want to. Because I like him. _Love_... him. He's my best friend and he takes care of me, and he isn't any of those things you said. I really don't appreciate you saying them, either. At all. So just go. Just... get out. Now."

He's reluctant to leave, I think, and I'm sure I hear some heated, whispered protests uttered in the hopes of getting Jordan to change her mind. But the fact is I'm no longer listening; I've heard everything I needed to hear, all the important things. I'm a little bemused, and more than a little surprised, but in a pleasant way. A very pleasant way, and I'm almost smiling as I maneuver my convoluted, off-balance path back to the couch. The door slams shut.

"I'm sorry, Jordan." I say it automatically, still a bit too ashamed of myself to meet her gaze, whether she blames me for what just happened or not. It isn't often that I come out of my proverbial shell like that. I'm not used to the way it feels afterward. The awkward sense of disruption.

I hear her sigh. "What are you sorry for, Nige?" She moves silently across the carpet, perhaps not as wobbly anymore. I'm still not looking at her even as she boots herself up to sit on the arm of her sofa, right above me. I catch a glimpse of her hands folded between her bare, knobby knees.

"Behaving like a categorical jackass," is my reply. I, too, sigh. "He just brings it out in me, is all. Always, really. You may find this hard to believe, but I don't much care for Woodrow Hoyt."

Jordan laughs once, briefly, my desired reaction. She isn't angry with me. "No! Really? Jesus, Nige, you could have fooled me." I feel her head lean down against mine, our temples nestled together. "I've never seen you more pissed off in my life."

I give her head a gentle nudge with mine in response. "Don't exaggerate. Surely you must have."

She's quiet for a moment, perhaps thinking it over. "No. I never have. Not even when I tried to force you into helping me find Frank Arnett that time."

I smile at the memory. "I wasn't pissed off then. I was just a bit frustrated with you."

Jordan falls silent again, then gradually slides from the arm of the couch and settles down into my lap instead, turned partially sideways. I can feel her staring at me. "Because I was treating you like a piece of background scenery?" she asks, her voice husky and soft and knowing my answer before I can even give it.

"That doesn't matter now." I stare at my hands in my lap for a few moments more, the eerie translucence of my fingernails. Then I finally lift my eyes to hers. They're brown right now, a beautiful chestnut brown with a hint of auburn to them. I wonder if mine look the same. "I'm not a stalker," I whisper.

"I know that," she whispers back.

"It's never been like that," I press onward, needing to clarify this. "I love you deeply, Jordan, but it's never been like _that_."

"I know," she says again. Her hand takes my hand and folds it over her knee.

"Crazy and jealous and pathetic, though, I can't deny any of those." My voice is solemn; I'm still gazing at her. "But I'm not possessive, Jordan, and I won't push you. I've never pushed you before, you know I haven't. I've waited for you."

"I know you have." Her hand moves my hand further up, beneath the hem of my t-shirt. My fingers are two steps ahead of my brain; they knead at the velvety flesh of her inner thigh, massaging and gradually working their way upward. She leans in closer to me.

"...Am I your boyfriend now, love?" I timidly ask; the most important question of all.

Our lips are precious centimeters away from touching. She pauses briefly, then smiles wide. "Yeah," she whispers. "That sounds good, Nige." Her breath cools my lips before they're burned by her mouth, and as she stands and leads me to her bedroom, I realize I was wrong.

I haven't felt this close to home in years.


	14. You Sort of Match

**London After Midnight**

**DISCLAIMER:** Hey guys, sorry this chapter took so long but I've been feeling a little depressed/uninspired. In other news, it certainly was a crappy season premiere. Woody and Devan should have never left the fucking elevator if you ask me.

**MANY THANKS: **Thank you **Brandi**, **NCCJFAN**, **Aesear**, **ShadowyFigure**, **Goddess Nemesis**, and **Jordan Cavanaugh** for your continued praise (although I was a little weirded out by the slash innuendo from some of you). Thank you **ryn the whitepanther** for your first review and **gryffingirl** for your MANY first reviews (always glad to convert the J&W shippers a little). And special thanks to **Nikki** for appreciating the chipmunk face line so much - it was my favourite part too!

**Chapter Fourteen**

**"You Sort of Match"**

**Jordan**

All in all, everyone takes my decision well. Dad doesn't totally understand it, but he accepts it, and Garret is just happy that I'm happy, I think. In not so many words he inferred that he always figured Nigel and I would end up together. He wished us both luck and told us he hoped to see us back in the country as soon as possible. Since I'm just taking some vacation time I'll be back before Nigel. My job is on hold, while his has been temporarily filled.

Lily continuously gives me smiles and nudges and asks how it happened, and after about the fiftieth Spanish Inquisition, I finally tell her. She coos and gasps and muses about how romantic it all sounds. I request for her to please not use that word, and she scolds me with a frown and a pair of slashed eyebrows.

"But it _is_ romantic, Jordan," she insists, and goes on to regurgitate my entire story, putting a spin on it in that passionately objective perspective that is so uniquely Lily. By the time she's finished, my cheeks feel warm. I guess it is pretty fucking romantic, after all.

Sometimes Nigel stays at my apartment and sometimes I stay at his, but either way we're together every night. We have spontaneous sex where ever we please and at all different times of the day, and mostly we're protected but sometimes we forget and those are always the best times, the most intense, full of screaming and clawing, strength and love. And sleep when it's over; blissful, sated sleep.

Woody leaves us both alone and after a week or so I learn through the grapevine that he's started seeing Devan, and that strikes me as funny considering he was supposedly so in love with me. If it was only going to take him a few days to get over me, then I don't understand what the big deal was in the first place.

But in the end I don't care, because I have Nigel, and in just about two weeks after he receives his deportation notice in the mail, he and I are on a British Airways flight bound for Heathrow Airport.

I had the window seat at first but about an hour into the flight I started to feel like I swallowed a jar of butterflies courtesy of Bug and I asked Nigel if I could switch with him to be on the aisle. He readily agreed, but not before he pressed his palm to my forehead with some mixture of the clinical concern of a doctor and the protective tenderness of a father and announced, "You're quite clammy, love."

"I'm fine," I assured him. "It's just been a while since I've flown, that's all. Now switch."

He gave me a long, skeptical look, his eyes narrowed, his lips pursed, before he finally relented and stood, backing into the aisle. I followed suit, each movement taking a valiant effort; I felt lethargic and achy all over. Nigel moved to sit in my seat and I collapsed into his, fully realizing it probably wouldn't be long until I had to take advantage of my reason for switching seats and beat a quick path to the bathroom to throw up.

"You're feverish as well," Nigel muttered, attempting to get the last word.

"I'm _fine_," I repeated, not letting him.

The stewardesses passed by with their rolling trays and I ordered a couple of jack and gingers in an attempt to steady my stomach, and about an hour later here I am, still feeling like the lowest form of life to ever roam the earth. I went for a long stretch managing to keep the nausea at bay, but now it washes over me like a tidal wave, pulling me in and sucking me under.

"Oh, Christ," I quietly moan, lurching up from my seat and nearly toppling over the glasses on my tray in doing so. I somehow manage to reel down the aisle without tripping and falling over, although I do bump into a stewardess who places her hand on my shoulder in passing and asks if I'm all right. I don't have time to answer her as I fumble for the handle on the unlocked bathroom door and spill inside. The room is too small for my knees to buckle and immediately hit the floor, so my skinny body rattles around inside the little cubicle for a few seconds like a ball bearing in a ringbox before finally slumping to a kneel over the toilet seat.

I don't even realize Nigel has followed me until I feel his hands on my upper arms, then on my cheeks, my forehead. His fingers rake through my hair, curling and matted with sweat, and pull it tightly back into one fist. His other hand goes back to my arm, his palm boiling hot against my freezing skin, his thumb stroking it gently, and all I can think is _God, I'm throwing up in front of him, I'm throwing up in front of Nigel_, and maybe a year ago that wouldn't have mattered but right now I'm so embarrassed I want to die. I also can't seem to _stop_; it goes on for almost a full minute before I finally push myself away, and thank God for the automatic flush, it's gone before I even have to look at it. That might have made me even more sick than I already am.

I wipe off my mouth with my wrist but that does nothing to clear the abominable metallic taste on my tongue. I don't want to look at Nigel, not at all, but I can't just ignore him either. I glance over my shoulder to find him hunched in a half-standing, half-bending position, wedged between me and the wall. The door is wide open, giving us even less room. It's funny somehow, and I can't help but smile, and that simple act seems to take most of the ache away. I'm actually feeling much better by the second, as though I were never sick in the first place.

"I don't know what's wrong with me," I try to explain. "It's the plane I guess. I'm sorry."

"What for?" he gently asks, releasing my hair and wrapping both arms around my waist for support as I struggle to stand up in the little squeezebox bathroom. "No harm done." He turns on the faucet in the sink and fills a triangular paper cup with cold water to offer me. I accept it and gulp it down under Nigel's watchful eye. "There's a good girl," he approves, and takes the cup from me when I'm finished, crumpling it in one hand and tossing it in the wastebasket. "Are you all right now, love?" Both his voice and his face are full of concern.

"Yes, Doctor," I reply, taking a mild jab at him. It's the only way I know how to respond to his taking care of me. In truth, I'm shocked by it; it's instinctive and tender and selfless and not what I'm used to at all. I'm grateful for it. Grateful for Nigel.

"Good, then," he continues, a brilliant smile spreading his features. "Just think, love. In a few more hours we'll be in my homeland, and there will be so many things to do and see and focus on. You can't be ill on your first day in England, I won't allow it. I'll see to it you get a nice hot cup of tea in you straight away." His palm smoothes over my scalp again in slow, repetitive motions. "Come on, love, back to the seats now. You can lay your head on my shoulder and take a nap for the rest of the time."

That's exactly what we do. We go back to the seats and I lay my head on his shoulder and fall into a sleep so deep that when Nigel finally succeeds in waking me up, I discover that not only have we landed, but we're the only ones left on the plane, which comes as a surprise to me because I've never been able to sleep so well and so long while travelling. In the terminal, Nigel sets me up inside a little cafe with a very hot, very soothing mug of English Breakfast tea and a corn muffin which I devour in under a minute, suddenly ravenous, as though I wasn't violently nauseas mere hours ago. Meanwhile, he phones his relatives to let them know we've landed. As far as he told me before we left Boston, his aunt knows we're coming and is willing to let us stay in the apartment above her store rent-free for the duration of our visit. She thinks Nigel is coming home for a kind of impromptu reunion, and that he's bringing me along to see the sights. Apparently she has no idea about the deportation; that the real reason her nephew is returning home is that he's being forced to by the U.S. government. Nigel pleaded with me not to let the cat out of the bag, that it would "break the old girl's heart." I've made my vow to remain mum on the subject.

I figured we'd take a taxi to the apartment, but instead Nigel's oldest cousin comes to pick us up - Duncan, the one Nigel told me about, the professional chef. I see the family resemblance right away - the same long, narrow face and large, protruding ears, and Duncan is just as tall and just as skinny as Nigel is - although his hair is not black, but a long, curly apricot blonde, and his eyes are not hazel, but a piercing blue. He's friendly, albeit being a man of few words. He greets us with a half-wave and an uttered, "'Lo," and then whisks us away in his little black Volkswagen, Nigel and I squeezed together in the backseat and half of our luggage in the front, not all of it having been able to fit in the hamper-sized trunk.

During the drive, Nigel and Duncan make lighthearted conversation about the last few times they saw each other, and summarize the time spent inbetween. Nigel transforms into a fantastic backseat driver, dictating which route Duncan should take and directing him to slow down whenever we pass a sight that he deems worthy for my "untried American eyes," as he puts it, to take in. So we drive around Piccadilly Circus seven consecutive times, _For good luck_, Nigel explained, _It's a family tradition_. I see Big Ben, I watch Carnaby Street pass slowly by, and Nigel and I even pile into one of those tall red phone booths and make Duncan take half a dozen pictures of us with Nigel's digital camera - most of them of a playfully risqué nature. And it's only my first day. I still have plenty of time to try spotted dick.

My first impression of Nigel's aunt, before even meeting her, is that she must be a very busy woman. When we arrive at her shop, the line to make a purchase is nearly out the door. Duncan places his hand on the knob to turn it and is promptly whacked in the face with the door by a couple of old ladies exiting the shop, their arms full of brown paper bags containing what looks like a week's worth of English staples - tea, bread and jam, boxes of biscuits, you name it. Nigel emits a low whistle.

"Looks like Auntie Bea's doing well for herself," he remarks. "I don't remember her ever filling the place like this before I left."

"Nigel?" A voice from somewhere in the middle of the crowd chimes in, and _chimes_ is just the right word for it - the voice is high and airy and melodic, the voice of a woman full of happiness and peace. "Nigel? Is that my big bad sailor nephew I hear?"

"I haven't been a sailor for a good many years, Auntie Bea," Nigel grins, as a very short, very small-framed woman with a long broom of apricot hair straight down her back struggles through the crowd to get nearer to us. When she opens her mouth to speak, the voice matches the one that chimed just seconds ago, and I realize I am now in the presence of the infamous Auntie Bea.

"Good bleedin' Christ, I forgot how tall ye are," she remarks, having to extend her arms all the way up to reach Nigel's shoulders. "Like a giant. I do believe I've shrunk."

Nigel bows down to collect the fiftysomething year old woman in his arms. "I do believe you've always been quite miniature," he retorts.

"Bite yer tongue," she warns him, squeezing tightly before pulling away. "Ah, it's good to see you, love. Is this your girl, then?" Her eyes - the same crystal blue as her son's - are on me now, a warm smile suspended on her lips.

"Ah!" Nigel exclaims in agreement, as if he'd temporarily forgotten I was here. "Yes. Jordan, this is my Auntie Bea, and Auntie Bea, this is Jordan Cavanaugh." His arm slips around my back, his hand firmly squeezing my opposite shoulder to snuggle me closer against his body. "She's my very, very best friend and I love her more than anyone in the world, so do be nice to her, yes? For me?"

Auntie Bea gives Nigel a good solid whack on the shoulder. "Don't be a jackass, I wouldn't dream of being anything but nice to your young lady. Hello, dear." She extends her hand for me to take and I do. Her skin is slightly wrinkled and just about the softest thing I've ever felt.

"Hello," I reply, my voice containing the amused, slightly exasperated finality of someone who hasn't gotten a word in edgewise for quite some time. "It's good to meet you. Nigel seems to only say nice things about you."

"So far," Auntie Bea adds, with a slight wink. "Wait until you've lived above my shop for a week or so, then that canary'll be singing a different tune. Speaking of which, you might as well go on up and have a look round the flat. It's furnished but it hasn't been lived in since I subletted it to some German tourists last summer, so some things may need a bit of fixing up. Just let me know and we'll see what we can do about it. But right now, I've got to get back to my customers - it's a bloomin' madhouse in here on Sundays. Perhaps we'll all get together for supper later, yes?"

She doesn't wait for an answer before disappearing into the crowd again, giving me the impression that Auntie Bea is a woman accustomed to getting what she wants, whether anyone has any objections or not.

Nigel expresses his gratitude to Duncan for chauffeuring us around London for the day, and then both men step outside to retrieve our luggage from the car. After they bring it all up the back staircase and then come down again, Nigel takes my hand and leads me up to our new apartment. The door is unlocked and Nigel finds a set of keys on a hook in the wall to the left.

The apartment itself - the flat, as Auntie Bea called it - is small, but beautiful in its way. It contains about three and a half rooms; a square kitchen off to one side, big enough to hold a small dining table, a tiny bathroom next to it with a shower stall but no tub, a room on the opposite side with the door shut that I can only assume is the bedroom, and the room we're currently standing in, which is the biggest. The living area, I guess, painted pea green and cream, with a modest sized television set against the wall, a large plush couch facing it, and just a few paces behind is a huge bay window with a seat. I cross the room to it, automatically attracted by its unusual charm, and discover it is directly stacked atop the bay window of the shop below, and the view is overlooking Sydney Street, with its many odd shops across the road and the many odd people scuttling to and from each one.

This is about when it hits me that I'm not in Kansas anymore. I don't have to go to work tomorrow to cut up dead people, I don't have to worry about avoiding Woody Hoyt or what I'll say to him if that isn't possible, I don't have to worry about stumbling upon and digging up old family relics better left uncovered, and I don't have to worry about being alone for the rest of my life and drying up a bitter old prune who never got to experience what it's like to spend time in a foreign country with someone you really love.

Probably the only thing I _do_ have to worry about is that my period is almost two weeks late.

I don't know why I didn't realize it sooner, or why it occurred to me _now_, of all times, and not four hours ago when I was puking my guts up in the airplane bathroom. But for some wildly illogical reason, sitting here on a padded little window seat looking out over a street I've never seen before in a country I've never been to, all I can think about is the unexpected, terrifying possibility that I may very well be pregnant.

"Is it all right with you, love?" Nigel's voice breaks through the sudden London fog that clouds my thoughts, doom and gloom hovering in the air around me, making it heavy and thick.

I look up, my eyes meeting his over my shoulder. Mine feel wide, and I can imagine that I must look either guilty or scared. In truth, I feel both. "Is what all right?" I ask, afraid he sensed what was on my mind.

"Well the flat, of course," he replies, beaming brilliantly as he practically bounds across the room to the window seat, settling down next to me and stretching out his long legs all the way. His eyes go away from me for a moment as he gazes distantly out at the street below. "Isn't it a lovely view? I remember when I was a little boy and me Mum would visit Auntie Bea, I'd sneak off and come up here to be by myself. I liked to watch all the people pass by and make up little stories about them; where they were going and where they had come from. I was a bit of a lonely kid, I suppose. The flat seemed so much bigger back then," he muses, taking his eyes from the window to roam around the room, wall by wall until they collide with mine again. His smile reappears, accompanied by a slight nod of approval. "D'you know something, love? You look just exactly as though you belong here. Right here, in this very spot. You sort of... _match_."

I like that idea; the idea that I match with this completely random place I've never been to before and never even knew existed until a few short weeks ago. I take sudden, desperate comfort in it. Abruptly I stand and take the half-step to get to Nigel, my arms going frantically around his shoulders as I climb up into his lap, straddling him with one knee bent at either of his hips. I press my cheek to his neck and close my eyes against the view of Sydney Street, nauseas vertigo having crept upon me again because of the height. Because of something else, too, maybe. I think about Tyler and August Jordan, and I think about Lily lecturing me about appreciating romance, and I think about Nigel, who thinks I look just exactly as though I belong here, right here, in this very spot. Maybe he's right. Maybe they're all right.

My hand drifts into the roots of his hair, fingers tangling themselves up. I shift my cheek to rest against his and I press my lips to his earlobe, loops and all. "Thank you for bringing me to where I'm supposed to be," I whisper.

And I don't just mean England.


	15. I Met You On A Monday Morning

**London After Midnight**

**DISCLAIMER: **Wow, "Out of Sight" was a really great episode. Quintessential Crossing Jordan. It was so good to see Lily again, she is so beautiful. I hope she gets with the detective who used to play Tobey on Dawson's Creek, lol. I have to say my favourite part, though, was when Nigel said the initials on the medal were "A.S." - because those are my initials sheepish grin. Woodymajor asshole. He REALLY annoyed me with not being accepting of agoraphobics. I have a few of them in my family. Anyway none of this has anything to do with LAM but I just needed to throw in my two cents.

**MANY THANKS:** Thank you **Nikki**, **NewMoo**, **Brandi**, and** ShadowyFigure** for your continued praise. Thank you **c313** for your first review. Thanks so much **gryffingirl** for cheering me up, and for jumping ship of course! I couldn't ask for more. And thank you **Aesear** for your honest review - in truth, I enjoy _writing_ the Nigel chapters more, which is so strange to me because this is my first time ever attempting Nigel while I have written as Jordan, on the other hand, for about a year and a half now. For some reason I just feel like I really connect with Nigel - I guess it's my complete and total sympathy for the character as he relates to the show (I've been known to have a weakness for the underdog). Also, I didn't do a lot of the other char's reactions to J&N because I didn't want it to be overkill or too corny, which I was afraid might happen if I posted everyone's reaction, and also, Jordan and Nigel didn't want their coming together to be a huge to-do... they wanted to keep it more private and discreet :) And yeah, Woody and Devan need to prance off into the sunset together... I couldn't care less if they're a perfect match or not, but it would get Woody the hell out of the way at least lol. Okay, enough rambling.

**Chapter Fifteen**

**"I Met You On A Monday Morning"**

**Nigel**

_Culture shock_, they say, is a feeling of confusion felt by a person visiting a country or place they are not familiar with.

That first week back in England, I experienced it in abundance. Hand in hand, Jordan and I discovered all the wonderfully perplexing oddities and amenities involved in learning - or relearning, in my case - the customs of a foreign country, starting with the food.

I'd all but forgotten what a pleasure it is to have a stroll down the street to the corner chip shop and indulge in a greasy, triangular paper sack full of deep fried fish and chips - or _french fries_, as I'd grown accustomed to calling them in the States. _Too_ accustomed, it seems - even Jordan caught on quicker than I did where small potatoes are concerned, going so far as to correct me when I mistakenly placed my order the American way our first time at an English restaurant:

"I'll have the cod with a side of fries, please."

"My boyfriend's been in America too long," Jordan explained to the clerk. "He'll have the cod and _chips_."

"First time I've ever heard a Yank correct a native," the cashier replied, and dumbstruck, went off to fill our order.

We're not supposed to use ketchup here, either, that's a big no-no. Very frowned upon. But for some reason I still couldn't seem to stop myself from reaching for the old Heinz bottle and drowning my fine English cuisine in it. Jordan did it the proper way, dousing her chips with a few splashes of malt vinegar, and seemed to find it quite pleasing. Actually Jordan's found most of the English palate quite pleasing, ordering welsh rarebit with pickled beets, shepherd's pie, Yorkshire pudding, Heinz baked beans on toast for breakfast, hell, even spotted dick for dessert, and all without the slightest bit of prejudice or doubt. The only thing I could _not _persuade her to try - probably the only thing I'd find even remotely tempting if _I _were an American - was half of my fried Mars bar at a football game one afternoon.

"Are you trying to_ kill _me?!" she exclaimed, recoiling in horror from the sugar-dusted delight. Completely enamored, I laughed and reeled her in for a chocolate-flavoured kiss.

One thing that doesn't take much getting used to is the act of sitting down for high tea once every afternoon. In America, I had taken to drinking coffee to help me stay awake on the job, but in my heart of hearts I enjoy nothing more than a teacup full of English breakfast made cloudy with lots of milk and sugar. And now, living above a tea shop, it's an even more pleasurable experience. Every day at four-forty-five, Auntie Bea hangs her "Back in Fifteen Minutes" sign on the shop door and gathers up Jordan and I - Duncan, too, when he isn't at work - and we all get our pick of any of the flavoured teas she has in stock, plus a batch of her freshly baked biscuits. She'll switch the store radio from elevator music to the classic rock station (bless her tree-hugging hippie heart) and make sure we all get a good fifteen minutes peace. Jordan seems to love this particular ritual as much as I do, and I do believe I've succeeded in converting her into a tea drinker.

The simple truth is that Jordan seems to love England, period, taking to it like a fish to the ocean. She becomes instantly fascinated with all of the smallest things I've always taken for granted since childhood, red phone booths and double-decker buses and signs that spell color with an o-u-r. She listens to other people's conversations just to pinpoint all the different variations of the English accent and then repeats certain words to me and asks if she sounds convincing enough. She never does, dear girl, always slightly sounding more like she's from Louisiana than Liverpool, and that makes me love her even more. _Everything_ makes me love her even more; day by day I watch the happiness spread across her features, and knowing that I helped put it there makes my heart swell with affection and yearning, swell near to bursting, ten times worse than it ever was during all the years I couldn't have her.

In the daytime we go out and in the evenings we stay in, sort of playing house in this little apartment that isn't really ours, trying on forever and seeing how it fits. And I love it, I do. I love living here in my homeland with Jordan and I think that if we could stay here for the rest of our lives, I would. Gladly, and without any reservations whatsoever. Surely we could find jobs here; people die everywhere, all over the world. There isn't much in Boston that I couldn't also have in England, though I don't suppose I could ever find another mate quite like Buggles. But he would visit us, surely...

I'm digressing, I know. I'm getting far too ahead of myself. Jordan would probably never go for moving here, her whole life is in Boston and nearly always has been. What I need to do is simply enjoy this brief vacation, because that's exactly what it is: A vacation, and nothing more.

A week has passed us by and so has Sunday morning; when I wake up it's nearly two in the afternoon and I curse myself for sleeping so late. Though I suppose I shouldn't be too surprised; Jordan and I spent most of last night in bed doing many other things before we even got around to _thinking_ about sleep. I've rapidly discovered that when it comes to making love, Jordan's enthusiasm is completely unrivaled. What I was shown that first rainy night was only a fraction of her true nature, fear and shyness having restrained most of her passion - and it was quite plentiful, even so. But now that those awkward first strides of our relationship have been taken, my dear girl does not hesitate to wring me out like an old dish rag in bed, squeezing out every drop of energy until I'm limp and useless in her grasp.

It's memories of last night that I wake up to, perhaps fragments of cognitive dreams having magnified them. Jordan on top of me, a sharp bare knee tucked in at either side of my hips. One of my long union jack t-shirts hanging loosely around her tiny frame and swaying back and forth slightly every time she does, her milk-white thighs parted and me between them. Her palms flat on my chest, covering my nipples, and my hands on her waist, _fascinated_ with her waist, the strength in my fingers there helping her to move more swiftly. How her eyes would drift closed and then she'd open them listlessly to look down into mine. I saw something in hers last night, something that's been hovering inside her gaze all week. A secret question for me. I wish I knew what it was, I wish that I could read her thoughts. Despite all her happiness, something is bothering Jordan. Something is bothering my dear girl and I don't know how to help her but there is nothing in the world I want more than to try.

This is what is riddling my mind as I turn over from my back to my side, searching for her warm, soft body with my arm, meaning to use it to encircle her waist and draw her against me to make spoons. I love making spoons with Jordan Cavanaugh; her subtle curves fit just right against my lanky body, my knees behind her knees and my chin atop her head, and once last Tuesday morning she asked me to make love to her that way, the blankets creating a pocket of delicious heat all around us that seemed to warm me up for the rest of the day.

But I don't find her body there today, which doesn't quite surprise me either, not yet. It _is_ nearly two, after all, so it isn't inconceivable that I may have been the only one who overslept. I struggle to sit up, raking one hand through wild, oily morning hair to tame it, then briefly rubbing the sleep from my eyes. "Love?" I call out for her, my voice rusty and untried. I receive no answer, so I clear my throat and try again. "Jordan? Have you left me, then?" I'm joking, really, and I untangle myself from the bedsheets to stand, lumbering naked to the dresser for a pair of underwear. Somewhere in the back of my mind I remind myself I need a shower. I pull a t-shirt from the drawer anyway, and slip it over my head after stepping into the briefs. Jordan still hasn't answered; perhaps she's in the shower herself. Perhaps I'll join her.

_Perhaps she's being sick_, a voice whispers at me as I find my reflection in the tall mirror tacked to the back of the dresser. There is a long gray hair on the left side of my widow's peak which I did not notice yesterday but is absolutely unavoidable today. I reach up and twine it around my index finger, then pull it out with a grimace. _She's been sick an awful lot lately; this wouldn't be the first time this week you've woken up and found her vomiting in the loo_. Bloody hell, I'm getting old. Thirty-seven, I am. I'll be thirty-eight at the end of October. Soon, soon. Won't be able to yank out the gray hairs forever; I'd sooner go gray than go bald. I'll have to start dying my hair soon, I suppose. _She could be ill. She could be very ill, more than she's letting on. Something could be wrong with her. She needs to see a doctor_. It would have to be one of the women's brands, of course, they still don't make decent hair color for men. _Perhaps she's already seen a doctor, and she just hasn't told you. She could have done it a hundred times that you wouldn't have known about in the two weeks before you left the States. A thousand times, perhaps. It would explain her wistfulness, and the clouds in her eyes, and how hard she's trying to be happy and pretend as though there isn't anything wrong, and those looks she gives you sometimes, those desperate, hurting looks that beg you to beg her to tell you what's wrong_. No, I'd never use men's hair color; those horrible boxes with the cover art from the Eighties and the Brawny paper towel woodsmen type models with beards two inches thick... I'd rather use shoe polish. Thirty-seven, bloody hell, I'm getting old. _Perhaps she's pregnant_.

The thought creeps up behind me like a KGB assassin in a dark room, taking me into a choke-hold and wrapping a chloroform-soaked cloth around my mouth and nose. I tear my eyes from my reflection in the mirror and take a step backward, easing down to sit at the edge of the bed again.

Perhaps she_ is _pregnant. It's quite possible; there have been more than a few occasions in the last three weeks during which we all but completely lost our heads, forgetting everything but each other in the wake of our fervor. We'd scold ourselves afterwards and murmur a halfhearted promise of _Next time_. Sometimes we made good on it and sometimes we didn't. We haven't been careful, I know that we haven't. I've been inexcusably foolish. If Jordan is pregnant, then it's my responsibility. I realize that better than anyone.

But how would I _feel_ about it?

When I was seventeen, I had my first girlfriend. Her name was Eileen Sullivan. We'd met at a Stray Cats concert and hit it off right away; she was redheaded and Irish and half my size, and I remember one of my mates - Algernon, I think it was - joking that I could fit her in my shirt pocket if she needed a lift home. She was cool and apathetic and didn't talk much, and come to think of it she probably didn't listen much either, but she'd hold my hand in public and introduce me to all of her friends as _My boyfriend Nigel_. She had been the first girl who ever called me that and so no matter how often she would ignore me when I spoke, and no matter how rarely she would smile at my jokes, I fell madly in love with her. She took my virginity on our sixth date, just laid coolly underneath me with her legs parted and let me grunt and sigh and kiss her neck, never making a peep but just waiting for me to finish. We weren't protected, and it didn't take long. Afterward I whispered _I love you, Eileen_ in her ear but she just pulled her knickers up and pushed her skirt down and wriggled out from under me. I followed her to the loo and helped her wash throw-up from her long titan hair, so enamored that I never realized there was anything wrong, that she hadn't had an orgasm, that she hadn't even_ tried _to. That she didn't say she loved me, too.

The next day she broke it off with me. She never even ended it properly, simply stopped speaking to me and had her father tell me she wasn't home whenever I rung her on the phone. He was a brisk, curt man too much like my own father for my taste. _Stop calling_, he'd gruffly demand, and hang up. Within a week I learned she was going round with some other boy. Richard, his name was, I think. Or Rufus. I don't quite remember. I didn't know him well. I went through a brief period of shame and brooding, perhaps a month or so, before I started letting myself go out and have fun again. Then one night at some club I saw one of Eileen's girlfriends who happened to be on the outs with her at the time - and quite drunk, as well - and she let me in on a little secret: That Eileen had been pregnant, and that she had had an abortion.

I never really knew for sure if it was mine. I never called Eileen to ask her. I'm not even certain _she_ would have known; she wasn't a virgin the night I ceased to be one, and she certainly wasn't celibate with Rufus or Randolph or whatever his name was. But I never could shake the feeling of doom that crept inside my gut, the unexplainable certainty that she had got rid of a child that belonged to me.

I didn't blame her, I guess. We were only seventeen, still children ourselves. But it hurt. It hurt me so deeply that sometimes I _still_ feel a dull ache when I think about it, an emptiness, a yearning for something taken away before I even knew it was there to begin with. I never _asked_ to be a father, but completely without my knowledge it had happened, and the loss I felt told me that the choice she made, I never would have approved. I never would have even _considered_ it.

If Jordan is pregnant, I need to know. I need to go to her and tell her it's all right, that I still love her and I would do anything for her. That we can do it together. We can do it, no problem. I'm thirty-seven years old and I can't yank out the gray hairs forever. This could be _it_. This could be _everything_.

I stand from the bed and leave the room barefoot, stepping out onto the living room floor and wincing at its frigid temperature. Jordan isn't anywhere in sight, but the bathroom door is closed. I can hear the faucet running and, underneath it, the sound of her sickness. My stomach clenches in empathy and I'm quiet as I walk across the room to get to the loo.

"Love?" I call softly out to her, my hand on the doorknob but unwilling to turn it until I have an invitation. "Are you all right?"

She doesn't answer for a long time, gagging violently for a stretch and then gasping for air when she's finished. "Fine," she replies in a hoarse voice that sounds as if she's been throwing up for quite some time, or perhaps several times since she woke up.

"You sound bloody awful, love," I argue, keeping my tone soft so as not to irritate her. "Let me come in. Let me hold your hair back." She makes a sound that is difficult for me to interpret, but most resembles somewhat of an _Mmm-hmm_ or an _Uh-huh_ before succumbing to a fresh bout of nausea, and that's all the permission I need. I turn the knob and let the door swing open, greeted with the sight of Jordan on the freezing bathroom floor, barefoot like me, wearing only the same t-shirt from last night, her hair wet with sweat and splayed in all directions as she kneels half-slung over the toilet. She looks so small. So small, and so cold. I take a dry towel from the rack beside the shower stall and wrap it around her little shoulders as I lower myself to my knees behind her and gather up her hair in one fist. I bow my head against her back and slip my free arm around her waist, stroking her stomach with the back of my hand. My eyes slide closed, my brows furrowed in sympathy and futility as I listen, Jordan's gags gradually turning into sobs and I shush her. "It's okay. It's all right, love." I raise my head to press a kiss against the back of her neck.

We stay like that for five minutes maybe, perhaps more. Then she reaches up to press down the handle and lets herself crumple slowly into my arms, her back slumped against my chest, limp and heavy with sadness. I release her hair and wrap both arms around her instead, cradling her close, my cheek pressed to her temple, and for a terrifying moment I think that maybe she isn't pregnant after all. Maybe she's ill, like I originally thought.

"This is the fourth time this week you've been sick, love," I whisper, trying to keep my voice from showing any sign of trepidation.

"I know," she replies, whispering too, but rough and breaking. "I'm sorry."

"Stop saying that," I quietly scold her. "It isn't your fault. You can't help being ill, right?"

She doesn't say anything for what feels like minutes, her breathing calming down. I can't feel her pulse pounding in her gut anymore. "I'm not sick," she finally confesses, staring straight ahead, and I finally exhale all of the air I was holding in my lungs. I was truly frightened for a moment back there; I don't know what I'd have done if I found out something was seriously wrong with Jordan.

My arms tighten around her but not too much, afraid of constricting her like a big jungle snake. I wish she would look at me. I need to see her eyes, I need to know how she's feeling about all of this.

"Are you pregnant, Jordan?" I hear myself whisper it but I don't feel myself say it. It's like listening to a recording of myself; it doesn't sound like my voice, it's distorted and surreal and not what I'm used to at all. I speak again in the hopes of rectifying it. "I mean... do you think that you might be?"

I feel her whole body go rigid, and when she speaks, her voice is tense and stone cold. "I know I am." She pulls away from me with all her strength, tearing herself from my arms and standing rather disjointedly before staggering out of the bathroom. Her towel falls to the floor. My arms instantly ache with need and my knees realize how cold the floor has been all along. My heart is hurt and my pride is wounded. I want her to come back.

I stare at the grime in the tiled floor for a really long time. One room away, dresser drawers slide open and clothing rustles and I know right away what she's doing. She's packing her suitcase. A wire snaps inside of me and my heart goes plummeting down into my stomach like a sandbag. For a brief moment, I can't see, my vision suddenly blurred by tears. I blink them back and lurch to a stand. I can't feel my legs as I trudge slowly back to the bedroom.

Sure enough, Jordan's suitcase is opened on the bed and she's emptying the contents of her allotted dresser drawer into it, hurried and willy-nilly, completely unorganized in her haste. She's even got her jeans on underneath my t-shirt, as if she means to leave right this second. Panic rises in my throat.

"What are you doing, love?" I firmly demand, trying hard to keep the tears from my voice. My whole face feels tight. "You can't just leave. Not over this. There isn't any reason to. We haven't even talked about it yet, Jordan. You need to at least give me the benefit of a reasonable discussion. This isn't a decision you can make without me, I won't let you. I _can't_ let you, love, please understand."

"You can't stop me." She sounds as if her throat is tearing itself in two, and it's only now that I realize how hard she is crying, teardrops making long trails down her cheeks and quivering thin lips, her breathing shallow and panting with hysterical sobs. She stops shuffling around long enough to raise her head and look straight at me, and the fear in her eyes is overwhelming. There's so much of it that I don't even know what to do with it all. "Don't you get it, Nige? I can't do this. I can't be a mother. I'd be no good. No good. Just as bad as my mother, maybe even worse."

"Jordan, it isn't true," I insist, my voice verging on desperation as I take a long stride forwards, reaching out to take her by the hand. She tries to pull away at first but I hold on, wrapping my fingers up with hers. "Oh, love. It isn't true." Five free fingers brush against the silky wetness of her cheek, making trails in her tears. "You'd be wonderful. Wonderful. Splendid, love. You're the bravest, most driven, most caring woman I know. You'd go to hell and back for the people you love. There isn't any way you wouldn't be a good mother. Listen to me, Jordan."

"I don't want to," she whispers stubbornly, her eyes so wide and frightened, pooling up into mine. "I'm scared. Okay? I can't. I can't, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, Nigel. But I have to go home now."

She doesn't have to tear herself away from me like she had to on the bathroom floor. Her words are sharp arrows splicing through my heart and my limbs go limp with the shock and confusion and awe of being hurt so very badly, so intentionally. I don't hold her back. I watch her close her suitcase and put on her boots and jacket and leave the room. I listen as the front door creaks open and I flinch as it slams shut. I can hear her footsteps on the staircase, getting softer and softer until she reaches the bottom and then I can't hear her anymore at all because she's gone.

She's really gone. My Jordan, my love, my dear girl, and she's carrying our child but for how much longer, I don't know. All I know is that it's happening again. This is Eileen Sullivan all over again, only this time...

This time I know. This time I'm not some clueless seventeen-year-old kid who found out a month after there was anything he could do about it. This time I'm a thirty-seven-year-old man who knows for sure, who just found out, and who still has plenty of time to stop history from repeating itself.

I don't know how I get to the front door so fast but I do know that I forget to close it behind me. I take the stairs two at a time and nearly go toppling headfirst when I underestimate the height of the bottom step. Over the heads of a dozen Sunday patrons of Auntie Bea's tea shop - mostly old ladies having just returned from church - I can see Jordan Cavanaugh opening the glass door and my heart leaps up into my throat.

"_I met you on a Monday morning!!_" I bellow so loud that not just Jordan, but _everyone in the shop_ turns around to gawk at me, standing here in nothing but my Sid Vicious t-shirt and my y-front underpants. My whole face fills with scorching heat but I keep talking all the same.

"It was a Monday morning. Drizzling a bit outside, but mostly just cloudy. I was sitting in the break room having a chocolate chip muffin and a cup of tea before I started my shift. I was early. So were you. You blew in like some sort of saucy American tornado, smoking a cigarette and asking who you had to fuck to get a decent cup of coffee around here. You were wearing ripped jeans and the same Doc Martens you wore three weeks ago with your purple dress, and a black Alanis Morrisette t-shirt. _Jagged Little Pill_. You sort of looked like her, too, I remember, because your hair was loose and curly and went all the way down to your lovely little bum. You blew me away, love. You made me feel like some kind of virgin schoolboy and all I could do was stare at you while you moved around the break room like a savage, smoking and grabbing and making conversation with no one in particular. Then you turned round and looked at me and smiled and said, _Hey, I'm Jordan Cavanaugh, who the hell are you?_ And I said, _Nigel Townsend_, and stood up to shake your hand and you backed away and yelled, _Holy shit, Garret didn't tell me I'd be working with giants!_ Then you asked if you could climb me and said you'd bet I was a two-day trip." I can't help but grin at the memory, wide and wistful. "It was ten years ago, but I remember it so clearly, love. You were twenty-five and I was twenty-seven. By the end of that first day all I wanted was to take you to bed, and by the end of the week all I wanted was to ask you to marry me."

I've completely captured the attention of the customers, it seems, all the gossipy old English ladies whispering to each other during every break in my speech. But the only pair of ears in the place that I'm concerned about is Jordan's, and my eyes never waver from hers, watching every flicker of emotion that passes through them from all the way across the room. Her thin little mouth is drawn and tense; tears still bead off her eyelashes and fall down her cheeks. I try to translate forever through our shared gaze alone; I try to translate infinite need.

"I've loved you for a very long time, Jordan Cavanaugh," I continue, my voice hushed but still loud enough to hear in the sudden dead silence of the shop. "And I would gladly love you for the rest of my life if you let me. I'd do anything for you, anything you asked. Except for this, love. Except for this. I can't let you do this."

"_Nigel_..." she cries. Her voice is so small. I want to go to her but I stay right where I am. She has to come to me, now. For once in our lives, Jordan has to come to me.

"Don't leave me," I plead, stretching both arms out to her, palms upturned. "Don't leave me, Jordan. You have to believe that you'll be a good mother. We'll be wonderful parents, you and I. The coolest, coolest parents. I want to try, love, please. Promise me you'll try with me. I love you so very much, Jordan. More than anything. More than myself. Come back to me. Let me show you how much."

It seems like hours pass in dreadful, horrible silence, during which the rest of my life hangs in the balance, at the mercy of meddling old tomatoes in front of whom it's all been put on display, every gory detail of it. I hold out my arms until my muscles ache, and just when I've begun wondering if time itself has simply stopped, a solid, echoing bang rattles the walls as Jordan drops her suitcase to the floor.

She's running to me, then, shoving patrons aside, blind to their age and any handicaps they may have, and my smile spreads so wide across my face that my cheeks spasm with the responsibility of it, and I'm laughing, laughing at the image of Jordan pushing old ladies out of the way and laughing with the pure joy of knowing that my life is never going to be the same. It's going to be _fantastic_.

Jordan collides with me so hard that she knocks all the air from my lungs and I gasp for it as I throw my arms around her, squeezing so tightly that I lift the heels of her boots off the floor, tightly enough to crush her before I realize my own strength and put her down. Her hands grasp either of my cheeks and pull my mouth to hers; she kisses me roughly, over and over again.

"Show me," she begs against my lips. "Show me. I love you, too, Nigel. I want to try."

She doesn't need to ask me twice. I let her use my shoulders as a boost and she wraps her legs around my waist, kissing me still, even as I turn around and carry her blindly up the stairs back to our flat, more adamant about showing Jordan Cavanaugh how much I love her than I have ever been about anything in my entire life.


	16. We Can Color Outside the Lines

**London After Midnight**

**DISCLAIMER: **Sorry for the long delay, but I've been pretty uninspired due to all the LAME Jordan/Woody/Devan crap going on on the show. But hey, next episode Jordan and Nigel go on a road trip together. I'm not getting my hopes up, but at least they'll get a chance to have scenes together without Woody interrupting.

**MANY THANKS:** Thank you **Nikki**, **Brandi**, and** gryffingirl **for your continued praise. Thank you **Havoc **for your first review and for the great "freaks in love" comment - that's exactly how I see Jordan and Nigel, lol. Thank you **Hester **also for your first review. Thank you Unicorn Goddess for your first review - I'm always glad to hear of any conversion I may inspire, lol. And of course thank you **Aesear** for approving of the way I handled the last chapter.

**Chapter Sixteen**

**"We Can Color Outside the Lines"**

**Jordan**

And he shows me.

Nigel shows me how much he loves me; I let him. He takes me upstairs and lays me down on our bed and does something to me that few men have ever bothered to take the time to do; my knees bent gracefully over his sharp, winglike shoulderblades, my eyes sometimes closed and sometimes gazing up at the crumbling plaster on the ceiling, my entire body alternating between being in the grips of arctic chills and incredible heat. When I whisper his name he goes faster, and the cries grow louder on my lips. _Nigel... Nigel..._ lots of _Nigel_ as I build up to a climax full of chaotic desperation; my fingers burying themselves in the roots of his hair and clawing at it wildly.

He shows me. And when it's all over and he's lying beside me with his long, strong arms all around me, I pull him from his stark white y-fronts with both hands and I show him, too. My movements are slow and tortured and seem to last a small, perfect eternity before he finally buries his head against my neck and whimpers, _Oh Jordan, love_...

Everything is quiet after that. For the rest of the afternoon we're quiet, all of our words whispered and all of our touches gentle. We don't speak much about what's happening, but Nigel's slender, ghostlike fingers seem to keep finding their way back to my navel, stroking and massaging my still-flat stomach, maybe in the hopes of making his presence known to the developing little being that nests inside. Nigel will make a great father someday.

I still don't know if I want it to be with me. I know now more than before that _he_ wants it to be with me, that he would gladly stay with me and raise it with me and probably even marry me. I think he would have married me anyway; he said in the bathtub that he would ask me eventually. I didn't know how I felt about it then, if I would accept or not. I guess I figured if enough time passed, if I got older and everything still stayed the same...

But that was before I knew it all. That was before I knew _everything_, the whole story. Just how much Nigel loves me and for just how long he has. I can't treat him like a back-up plan anymore. I can't just keep him around for my fall-back crutch. Especially now that I'm pregnant. I have to show Nigel that he means something in my life. I have to make up for all the times I looked the other way.

In other words, I have to grow up. _Now_, not eventually. I'm way past due.

Auntie Bea knocks softly on the door at tea time, asking through the wood if everything is all right. Nigel and I have been making spoons for an hour or more, buried under the big downy comforter that always seems to smell like clean laundry no matter how many times we use it. Both of his large, delicate hands are pressed against my middle, cradling my back to his front. At the sound of his aunt's voice, he breathes in deeply through his nose and shifts, his lips going to my shoulder and feathering an automatic wet kiss there. I wonder briefly if he's been napping.

"Everything's splendid," he calls out in a sleep-addled voice that gives me my answer. "We'll be down in just a moment. Won't we, love?" he asks this last part in a much softer tone, and I feel the light rustle of his breath against my ear.

"I wouldn't miss it," I whisper, my hands drifting down to fold over both of his.

We linger in bed for a few minutes more, savoring it as long as we can. This final coming-together. This emotional contract we've drawn up and signed that binds us for good. Any more legal and it _would_ be marriage, and I don't even know if I'd mind it so much. We dress quickly and quietly, stealing secret gazes at one another whenever we think the other isn't looking.

Nigel offers his apologies to Auntie Bea for bounding into a roomful of her Sunday customers wearing nothing but his skivvies, and Auntie Bea tells him not to bother worrying, that she sold more half-pound parcels of English Breakfast that day than she had in twenty years, and that everyone had an inquiry or two about her "tall, romantic nephew." That just about swells Nigel's ego ad infinitum.

"If you ever _really_ leave me, Jordan," he muses over the rim of his teacup, "It seems I'll have plenty of rebounds over at the St. Andrew's Knitting Society."

Auntie Bea gives him a whack on the shoulder so hard that he burns his tongue on his tea, and I spend a good portion of the night trying to soothe that injury.

Time passes so quickly here; days turn into weeks and I'm beginning to think I may never go home. I'm not even so sure where home is anymore; maybe it's starting to grow in England. Eventually we tell Auntie Bea about the baby and she recommends a good obstetrician in the area, which Nigel wants to take my hand and drag me to the very next day. But I bitch and moan about it, complaining that it's too early and a total waste of time. Something tells me that my enthusiasm is optional - if there were some way Nigel could get all the proper pre-natal care arrangements done without my actual presence in the room, he would do it post-haste just to ensure the safety of this little conglomeration of cells inside of me to which half his genes are the contributor. That fact alone causes my obstinacy to melt away, so what I _do _commit to is a phone call to a doctor back at the hospital in Boston. I schedule an appointment for next month. That makes Nigel wildly happy; my final signature, I guess, on the agreement to keep this baby.

It's not long before I've been here a month; well overstaying my original planned vacation time, although Garret never did give me a specific day to report back to work. I don't really consider myself homesick, at least not until I finally call up Dad and he asks me why the hell no one has heard from me for almost four weeks.

"I'm pregnant," I reply very casually, as if it's the simplest answer in the world and he's stupid for not thinking of it sooner.

"_Oh_," comes Dad's rapidly sobering voice, and I can just see him nodding his head in that gradual Red Sox fan comprehension of his. "Well, I can see how that might slow you down a little, I guess."

It takes us both a few minutes, but soon the expected outpour of emotion ensues, Dad asking how it happened and me telling him he should _know_ how it _happened_, and Dad suggesting we just leave that part out of it. The first thing he does is get his two cents in about a name - "Maxwell's a pretty good one, I think, but maybe that's just me," he coyly pipes in, and I can't resist the urge to roll my eyes. His second suggestion is that we use my old crib - "I've still got it, you know, down in the cellar," he reminds me. His enthusiasm is boundless and almost childlike, in a weird way, but mostly the actions of the quintessential grandfather-to-be. These first two suggestions I have no intentions of heeding, but I know there will be dozens - no, hundreds - more to come for which I will thank God that Dad is still around to help me through this, because I have no idea what I'm doing.

He makes me promise to come home. I stay another week before I book a flight to make good on that promise.

Nigel re-applied for his new Visa almost immediately after re-entering his homeland and has since received acceptance, with a huge support boost from my testimony that stated I am carrying his child. Basically all he's waiting for is the actual paperwork to come through in the mail. It hasn't yet, but it can take up to six weeks to arrive, being as we didn't express any urgency or dire need to have it expedited. I guess the logic is that no one is sick or dying, so we can afford to wait a couple of measly weeks to be together in Boston again. And I guess we can. But it's going to be hard, especially knowing what exists between us now.

My flight is scheduled for tomorrow afternoon, and Nigel decided he is going to take me out tonight, for my last night in London.

"We'll spend a ridiculous amount of money," he explains, wrapping his hand protectively around mine as we cross the street from the tea shop to the black buggy taxi cab waiting for us at the other side. "Might as well. I can't use English money once I get back to America, after all, and I doubt I'll be spending much of it once you've left." There's a twinge of sadness in his voice as he says that, and glancing up at him, I realize I can see it in his eyes, too. Nothing but melancholy and regret. Just for a brief instant, and then it's gone again, replaced with a bravado of optimism that is so purely Nigel. I can see right through it. "And I'll get massively bloody smashed. Smashed for the both of us, because you aren't allowed to anymore. D'you hear me, young lady? If I find out you've been downing pints at the Pogue while I'm away, I'll be very disappointed. I may even have to administer a spanking myself."

At that, I feel him pull his hand away from mine and clap me hard on the ass through the skirt of my dress - _the_ dress, the purple one. I brought it with me on the basis of some weird premonition that I'd crave to wear it some night, and tonight, I guess, is that night. I put it on because it just felt right to do so. The weather has been chilly the past few days, so I teamed it up with a pair of stockings and my leather jacket, and a pair of purple suede ankle boots I picked up during a shopping trip down Carnaby Street with Auntie Bea and her fourteen-year-old daughter Muriel - the cousin Nigel never got to meet before coming to America - one Saturday afternoon last week. I think I look good. At least, I really wanted to look good tonight. I don't really know why. Because I won't be seeing him for a long time after this, I think. I want him to remember the way I look tonight. I left my hair loose and curly down my back.

"Try that again and you'll be more than disappointed," I scold him as he climbs into the back of the cab, a sly smile beginning to spread across both of our faces. I climb in after him and settle into the circle of his arms.

"Where to, mate?" the driver asks. He's Indian and has an accent that uncannily resembles Bug's. A long drawl. I think I heard Nigel refer to it as Liverpudlian, or as Auntie Bea would simply call it, the ever-esoteric _Northerner_.

"The London Eye, mate," Nigel cryptically replies, without missing a beat. The driver seems to know exactly where to go; he just nods his head and pulls away from the curb.

"Nigel?" I softly interject after a minute or two, my cheek pressed against his crisp black workshirt, my hand reflexively rubbing at his thigh through his black vinyl slacks. They make a little squeaking sound each time my thumb brushes over the material. I'm fascinated with that.

"Hmmm?" he answers, slow and drawn-out and even a little mischievous. His lips, I realize, are buried in my hair.

"Where are we going?" I ask, turning my face into his chest. I seize one of the little black buttons on his shirt with my teeth, pulling at it suggestively and playfully, like a kitten, before letting it go. My thumb continues to make the vinyl squeak.

"You'll see." His voice is breathy and deep; his hand goes to my hand on his thigh and gently stills it. "But if you don't stop that soon, love, we won't be going anywhere except straight home."

I smile against his buttons, letting my hand slip away from his thigh as I finally pluck one open, then two, then three, my fingers slipping in to play with a faint, babyfine patch of chest hair just below his collarbone. "That might not be so bad," I whisper, craning my neck upward so that my lips can seize his adam's apple, blossoming around it and awarding it with a full, deep kiss. And then a bite, just hard enough so that it draws a soft whimper from somewhere inside his throat.

"Stop, love," he pleads again, whispering too, but he makes no attempt to disengage himself from me. "We'll have plenty of time for canoodling in just a few short moments."

It's those words that succeed in ending my advances; I push away from Nigel and roll towards the window with a loud, tickled laugh that I try to mute inside my palm. "_Canoodling_," I echo in a playfully mocking tone, rearing back my free hand to slap him reproachfully on the thigh. He catches my wrist and brings my knuckles to his lips for a kiss, laughing softly himself.

We reach our destination shortly and Nigel pays the driver, tipping him well for putting up with our so-called canoodling. The London Eye, as it turns out, is basically just an oversized Ferris wheel decorating the London skyline. We board it almost like we would board an airplane, only Nigel flashes some sort of special tickets that I didn't even know he had purchased, so we get in a lot faster than everyone else. At first he's a little nervous and asks me if I feel nauseas at all, that he didn't think of it beforehand and he should have. But the truth is my morning sickness has pretty much come and gone; I sometimes get a little dizzy when I first wake up but that usually goes away after I have breakfast.

"I'll be fine," I promise him, and so we board.

It's a private capsule, at least that's what Nigel called it when referring the tickets to the concierge. It's all but completely enclosed in glass, with a small cafe table in the center and two chairs. There's a bottle of champagne chilling on the table, and a pair of flutes set upright on either side of it. I can't say I'm not impressed.

"So how much did this do you in for?" I ask with no regards to etiquette as I pull out a chair and settle into it. Nigel follows suit and I smile across the table at him, very wide.

"In American money?" he asks, his brows furrowing in mock concentration. "Ahm... let me see, now... ah yes. A bloody fuckload." He grins too, very wide, very sexy, _inadvertently_ sexy... also with no regards to etiquette whatsoever. "Not that that's meant to impress you, of course. Remember, I'm not Hugh Grant."

God, sometimes I want him so much that I really don't know how I just ignored it all these years. I want to go back in time and smack myself for being such a stupid bitch.

We just sit grinning mischievously at each other for what seems like an eternity before I finally cross one leg over the other and let my lips relax down into a simple smirk.

"Pop that cork, Townsend," I direct him, arching one eyebrow which Nigel counters by raising one of his own. It must take him a minute to realize I meant the champagne, because he's idle for a few seconds before finally giving a start and reaching for the bottle on the table. He pulls it out of its ice bucket and stands to ceremoniously unwrap the top.

"All right, love," he concedes, pulling the end of the cork and twisting the bottle in a professional kind of way that makes me wonder if he's ever had bartender training. "But you're only getting one glass. Doctor's orders."

"Of course," I assure him, accepting said glass when he's finished pouring. Then he's sitting across the table again and we're both just looking at each other in that same playful, cryptic silence.

"What are we drinking to?" Nigel finally asks. "Life? Love? A new baby?"

I raise my glass. "How about we just drink to England."

Nigel gazes at me for a moment, a small smile painted lopsided on his lips. "God save the Queen," he agrees, and raises his. They clink together sideways and Nigel reels his back in immediately to drink from it, but I just lower mine to the table and watch him, my eyebrows furrowed.

After a few seconds, I ask, "Nigel, what is this?"

"It's champagne, love," he replies, then glances from my untouched glass to me and understands. "Oh. You mean _this_. What's the problem? I can't take my best girl out anymore?"

"Sure you can," I clarify, even though I know damn well he gets my drift. "This is just a little... _extravagant_, don't you think?"

"Well," he begins, wrinkling his forehead in contemplation. "I don't know that _extravagant_ is exactly the word for it, but... oh, hold on, love, we're moving."

And he's right. We are. Our little capsule has suddenly been given a tremendous boost upward and my stomach drops down, pressing against my bladder. "Jesus," I murmur, all at once realizing that don't remember the last time I was _on_ a Ferris wheel, or anything barely _resembling_ this behemoth of a carnival ride. My fingers grip the edges of the table so hard that my knuckles bleach against my skin.

"Stand up, love," Nigel prompts me, rising from his chair.

"Are you fucking _kidding_ me?!" I practically shriek at him, lacking the nerve to even_ look_ up, let alone stand. We're completely surrounded by glass and I'm not so sure I'm ready to watch the streets of London sink below me like the lost city of Atlantis.

"Oh, come on, Jordan," Nigel soothingly replies as he rounds the little table to me. "You leaped from rooftop to rooftop in California once. Don't tell me you're going to let an oversized Ferris wheel scare you." One of his big, graceful hands folds over one of mine, his fingers perfectly slender and pale and unblemished, tapered at the ends with clean, transparent nails. Beautiful. I really love his hands. "Everything I've read about this thing claims it's perfectly safe. They wouldn't decorate the skyline with it if it weren't. Now stand up, love, so I can show you my world."

That's what gets me. The idea of Nigel showing me his world, this world that I've been living in for the past month but Nigel's held encapsulated in his heart his whole life. This world I've been trying so hard to adapt to, this world I've learned to love so much, this world that I'll be leaving tomorrow. That makes me so sad, _so incredibly sad _that I'm leaving tomorrow. No more fish and chips. No more Auntie Bea. No more three-room flat on Sidney Street. And, for what could be weeks or even months, no more Nigel. That makes me saddest of all.

I stand up. Nigel takes my hand and leads me to one of the rounded glass sides of the capsule, and we look out at the ocean and the city, and as we go higher and higher, the traffic lights turn into starlight and the face of Big Ben turns into the face on the moon. And then eventually we stop, suspended in air like something almost holy.

"That's Parliament down there," Nigel narrates, his voice barely above a whisper. The vague realization that both of his arms are wrapped tightly around my waist doesn't pass me by, but I have to admit I'm mostly paralyzed by the view. It's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. "Parliament, and of course Big Ben. It all looks so much bigger from the ground." His voice takes on a childlike awe that I've never really heard from him before. His front is all lined up with my back, bent over me protectively, his cheek against my temple. "Do you see that shadow out there, Jordan?" He removes one arm from my waist to press his index finger against the glass. "That big looming black thing on the horizon? It's probably a lot easier to see in the daylight. But that's Windsor Castle, all the same. Forty miles away, by your scale. Forty _miles_." He almost gasps it. "Do you see it?"

I do see it. I do. It's almost ghost-like; a shiver rolls down the length of my spine and Nigel fixes both arms around me again. "It's beautiful," I whisper, folding both of my hands over both of his on my stomach.

"Indeed, it is." I can feel his cool, light breath against my jaw and I know he isn't talking about Windsor Castle anymore. His voice goes low and serious. "Jordan, I know you're leaving tomorrow. I mean, I know you've got to. Garret isn't going to hold your job forever, and your Dad misses you and... What I'm trying to say is... Well, there are so many things I want to say, really, because I love you. I do so love you, Jordan. You'll just never really know how much." He nuzzles his nose against my cheek suddenly, and I get the feeling like he's overcome with affection. I know because I am, too. I nuzzle back.

"What's wrong?" I whisper, turning halfway in his grasp so I can press our foreheads together, my eyes sliding almost shut and gazing into his just beneath the lashes. "Tell me, Nigel."

"It's nothing," he assures me, but it's unconvincing and it contrasts with the serious way he turns me fully around. Now we face each other, his shoulders hunched forward to equal our height. "Nothing," he whispers again, but then all of a sudden he's on his knees.

On his knees on the floor of the capsule, his hands madly, frantically pushing up the skirt of my dress. All at once I'm full of nerves and excitement and horror and the anticipation of an obscene act to be carried out right here with glass all around us and the entire city able to see if they squinted hard enough. My hands fly to his ears, two big ones that I love so much. "Hey," I cry through a surprised bout of laughter. "Hey, what's going on with you?"

He bunches the skirt up just underneath my breasts, leaving me practically exposed in only panties and stockings. "I'm going to miss you, love," he declares, leaning forward to bury his face against my stomach. His lips lay warm, devoted kisses all over my navel and the slight, soft padding there. "Both of you. _Both of you_. I wish you wouldn't go." Without any warning, he lets go of my dress and wraps both arms around my thighs, squeezing tightly. The skirt falls down to cover his head and I have to pick it up again myself.

I'm touched by his sweet, childlike display of affection, so touched that again I'm almost paralyzed. Almost speechless. "Oh, Nige..." My voice whispers and breaks and I can't think of anything else to say anyway.

"You shouldn't be on an airplane alone," he insists, nuzzling my stomach with his cheek. "You should wait for me. But if you have to go... if you want to go... I just need you to know that I love you, Jordan. I love both of you and I'll ring you every day and send you boxes of tea and cans of spotted dick and anything else you want or have a craving for. Anything, love, I promise. Even me, in the end. I'll come home to you and I'll take that citizenship test, I swear to bleeding Christ I will, and none of this will ever happen again. I'm so very sorry, Jordan."

"Hey, no," I cry, following him slowly down to the floor. He lets go of my thighs and I let go of my dress and we kneel beside each other like a mirror image. I lift one hand and bring it to his long, pale cheek. "Don't be sorry, Nige, okay? These past four weeks have been the most fun I've ever had in my life. I wouldn't trade them for anything and you better not wish you could take them back. I think right now I'd rather be here than anywhere else in the world. And you know something? I'd rather be here than on that plane tomorrow, too."

"So don't go," he whispers, his voice verging on urgency and hysteria. He responds to my hand on his cheek by plunging all ten of his long, spidery fingers into the roots of my hair, drawing our faces so close our noses almost touch. "Don't go," he pleads again, and kisses me, his lips warm and wet and tasting like no other champagne I've never had, rich and full and so, so sweet, probably better this way than from the glass. "Don't go." Another kiss. My own hands go to his hair, fingers sifting through that gentle little v-shaped recession just above his brow. His scalp is warm and dry. I let him kiss me and I return it all forcefully, and I can feel myself getting dizzy but if it's from vertigo or Nigel I'm not sure. Before I can decide, he takes his lips away and I can breathe again. His eyes translate desperation into mine.

"Stay with me in England, Jordan Cavanaugh," he begins anew, his voice more grounded than before. "I know I have no right to ask you to. You're like this beautiful sparrow and I could never try to clip your wings. I wouldn't even know how to begin. There are so many things I know about you, love, but I don't think I'll ever learn the magic words to make you stay put when you're so inclined to fly free. And I love that about you. Your spontaneity and your independence, it makes you you and I think it's so wonderful. I would gladly follow you anywhere you decided to go; I'd follow you into the maleficent flames of hell so long as you held my hand and led me." His hands brush stray curls from my face and tuck them behind my ears. "But I do owe you honesty, Jordan, and the truth is I'm not so sure I want to go back to America. If you really wanted me to, then I would. I'm prepared to. But being back here in London, surrounded by family... I just feel... like I _fit in_, like I finally fit in again. I feel loved here, somehow. I don't feel like such an underdog anymore. It's lonely for me in America, Jordan, and I'm misunderstood. But here I'm just... I'm just me, the real me. I'm not a freak, or a loser, or a stalker. I'm just... Nigel. Do you understand, love?"

"I do," I answer him, my hands slipping down to his long, elegant neck, my thumbs stroking the porcelain skin there. "I understand, Nigel."

And I do. I understand, because the truth is that Nigel and I are cut from the same cloth. I don't fit in at home, either. I never did, not when I was a kid, definitely not when I was a teenager, not when I went to med school, and not now. I don't ever remember a time when I felt like I really connected to Boston. I mean, sometimes it feels like home because Dad is there, and my job is there, but other times it feels like a prison cell, the walls slowly closing in... Maybe the most I've ever felt like I fit into a place was during those few years I spent in California with Tyler. But that wasn't even really me. That was just me conforming, pretending to be someone I wasn't in order to fit in with people I didn't even really like just so I wouldn't have to go back to Boston. I put blonde highlights in my hair and tanning oil on my skin and marijuana smoke in my lungs and listened to crap music and wrote crap poetry and laid around on the beach naked for hours at a time. I was always fucked up on something and sometimes in the mornings when I woke up, Tyler wasn't the only one sharing our bed. I did really crazy things with really crazy people, things I could never tell Nigel, things I've never told anyone, and when I think back on all of it now I want to kill myself. Yes, Nigel, I understand what it feels like to want to fit in. I understand it all too well.

But the thing is that Nigel actually _does_ fit in here. He doesn't have to pretend, and he's obviously so much happier here than he was in Boston. In fact, I've never seen Nigel as happy as he's been these past four weeks, and to take that away from him... to make him go back to Boston just because that's what people expect us to do... It doesn't seem right.

But what about me? What do _I_ want?

"You fit in here, too, Jordan." Nigel's voice is like a soothing narrative of my innermost thoughts. A smile, small and modest, turns up the corners of his lips, and his fingers trace over my features, brows and eyes and the bridge of my nose. "I've never seen anyone take to a new experience the way you've taken to England. It _suits_ you, love. I told you that the first day we arrived, that you match. You fit in. You seem so very happy here, Jordan. Please tell me you haven't only been pretending."

"No," I firmly assure him, giving a gentle shake of my head. "Of course not. I love it here, I mean I really do. I love the culture and the people and the _food_..." He laughs at that, soft and amused, and I smile in return. "I feel like... I could stay here. For a long time. And not get bored."

Nigel's hands are on my shoulders now, rubbing them through my leather jacket. There's earnest excitement in his eyes. His voice is intense with barely contained enthusiasm. "We could have a good life here, Jordan. I've thought about it _a lot_. But before now they were only daydreams. We could get decent jobs with the coroner's office here, just as good as our jobs in Boston, I'll bet. Maybe better, because we'd come highly recommended. We could afford to pay Auntie Bea rent money, and when the baby is born we could find a bigger place, or maybe a little house. A brownstone." He lifts his thumb and index finger to pluck playfully at my chin. "We... we could get married. But only if you wanted, and if you never want to, then that's okay, too. There are no rules with us, Jordan, remember that. We can color outside the lines."

"Outside the lines..." I echo, my imagination already full of the picture show Nigel's oracle has conjured up. A job here, conversing with Scotland Yard detectives on a daily basis, seeing how forensics science is handled differently here than in Boston, seeing how many new cases I can let myself get carried away with, seeing how much trouble I can get into on the other side of the pond. More of Auntie Bea's apartment and more fish and chips and spotted dick and anything else I have a craving for. And then later, a brownstone. A brownstone and a baby with an accent like Nigel's and an attitude like mine, a funny-looking, beautiful child too intelligent for its own good and always, always headstrong and stubborn. The most immaculate mixture of Nigel and me, and we don't ever have to get married, but if I wanted to, we could, and there's comfort in knowing that.

What would Dad say? What would Garret say? What would Woody say?

_Go for it, Jordan. If you have a chance to hold real, tangible happiness in your hands, then don't let it slip through your fingers. Just go for it_. That's what Lily would say, and somehow her soft, reassuring voice neutralizes all others.

"Maybe," I finally say, my voice a little firmer than a whisper. I find his eyes with my own and his are wide and hopeful. "Maybe we could try. Just try it out for a little while... You could get a job and I'll... I don't know, I'll help your aunt downstairs in the shop. We'll just try it, you know? For a while? Just so I can see how it... fits."

His arms go around me and he pulls me close. "I think that is a splendid idea, love." And as he curls over me to press his mouth to mine, our capsule begins to move again. Up, up, and up to the top of the world.


	17. Murphy's Law

**London After Midnight**

**DISCLAIMER:**

Dear everyone,

Yes, this really is the final chapter. Or the epilogue, as I put it, because the last chapter really was the conclusion. This just kind of ties everything together. I figured I would go out on a high note – the last thing I set out to write here was a hundred chapter bore fest, lol. This isn't the last of my Jordan/Nigel fic writing days; I'll be back sometime soon either with a new fic, or who knows, a sequel to this one if I get inspired. I just want to thank all of you from the bottom of my heart for supporting me and supporting J&N, and for all the J&W fans who read and tolerated this story, and for the precious, beloved few who jumped ship and swam over to ours. Here's hoping this season gets better, not worse.

Vehemently Dreading the Crossing Jordan/Las Vegas Crossover Episodes,

Abbey

**MANY THANKS:** Thank you** Brandi**, **ShadowyFigure**, **Hester**, and **NCCJFAN** for your continued praise. Thank you **Xelena** and **lily-cavanaugh** for your first reviews. Thank you **gryffingirl** for your continued praise and for calling me an awesome writer. You're not so bad yourself and I love your story. I look forward to reading more J&N fics from you while I regroup to plan out my next one. Thank you ever so much **Aesear** for all your wonderful comments. I agree that with the exception of seeing Steve Valentine both in sweats and shooting a rifle like a character in a Tarantino film (yummy), "Justice Delayed" was highly overrated and extremely disappointing. I miss the old days of Season Two when Nigel and Jordan used to flirt all the time. Things are so clinical between them now; they're like two completely different characters, Jordan especially. Is it just me, or did she used to be a lot nicer to Nigel?

**Epilogue**

"**Murphy's Law"**

_Nothing is as easy as it looks;_

_Everything takes longer than you expect;_

_And if anything can go wrong,_

_It will, at the worst possible moment._

**Nigel**

So we tried it out.

That night, I got incomprehensibly bloody smashed, smashed for the both of us – hell, for all three of us. Jordan brought me home in a taxi cab and helped me stagger up the back staircase to our little flat. She took off my boots and my clothes – _Everything, love_, like she had requested at the motel – and put me to bed, pulling the covers over my shoulders and kissing my forehead just as though I were a little boy. I nearly expected her to be gone when I woke up, halfway to America already, having taken an earlier flight as a result of my pipe dreams about staying in England. But she was there. Jordan Cavanaugh was still there under the blanket, her front all lined up with my back, one of her tiny arms around my waist, her sharp knees behind my knees. Spooning me. Dear beautiful girl. As I recall, I nearly wept with joy and relief and the pain of the horribly intense hangover hitting me like a mack truck from behind. So much for having a high tolerance. But Jordan took care of me that day, and she didn't go to Boston.

Oh, she did eventually. We both did, once I got my new Visa. Jordan was a little over two months along by then, and we were even able to make it in time for her first appointment with the obstetrician; the one she had scheduled a month prior. I have to admit I got a little carried away with it, my fingers working like mad to jot down nearly every word the doctor said in a fresh composition notebook I'd purchased just for the occasion. I took notes like I never bothered to in high school; I picked up two of every pamphlet in the waiting room and once we got back to Max Cavanaugh's house I began immediately to arrange the paraphernalia in a binder – the _History of Coffee_ one, actually. I'd retrieved it from my old office at the morgue and promptly nuked it, a necessary sacrifice to begin my newest labour of love: an homage to the prenatal life of my firstborn child. I've since completed it. It's part how-to, part memoir, part comedy, no tragedy whatsoever. You'd enjoy it, I think.

It also happened that we had scheduled our trip to spend Christmas in Boston, and the day after our doctor's appointment, we crashed the obligatory holiday party at the morgue. God, it was great seeing everyone again; we handed out the presents we'd purchased in London and accepted the gifts they gave us as well. Going into it, no one knew that we were expecting, but after I'd gotten a few egg nogs under my belt, I had no trouble blurting out the truth to anyone who was willing to listen. "We're pregnant, you know," I'd say during the first break in the conversation, and the reaction, as I recall, was mostly warmth with an undertone of surprise. Buggles thought I was joking; I spent a good ten minutes trying to convince him before I finally had to drag Jordan over and have her tell him. He still refused to believe it. I don't think he actually believed it until the bloody kid was born.

Lily cried. Garret clapped me hard on the shoulder and warned me that if I did or said one thing wrong to Jordan,_ ever_, that he would kill me, and reminded me that he of all people would know how to do it so that he'd never get caught. I don't think anyone told Woody Hoyt directly, but word travelled fast around the crowded little room and eventually he overheard, his eyes meeting mine over the sea of mingling heads and translating pure contempt that I didn't bother to return. Why should I? I had won.

Boston was nice, full of snow and memories and Red Sox fans still gloating over the Series. But we didn't stay for very long. We were back in England in time to ring in the new year, and soon after, I landed a job with the coroner's office. Jordan was itching to get back to work but she had to apply for citizenship first, which we both found quite amusing and ironic, in its way. She helped Auntie Bea run the shop while she waited, and sometimes in the evenings I'd help her study for the exam, prattling bits of useless English trivia off the top of my head.

The months ticked by and Max Cavanaugh came over to visit for St. Patrick's Day. He hit it off quite well with Auntie Bea, who's been widowed since the early Nineties or so. She had a lot of fun teasing him about being a cop in the Sixties, by far the most uncool time to go into that profession. She called him a pig and he called her a commie, but they decided they were quite fond of each other in the long run. On a whim, we all made a go over to Dublin for a weekend pub-crawl; Jordan lead sing-alongs in crowded rooms and the rest of us drank green beer and cheered her on.

She was five months along by then, and we'd since had several sonograms done. I can remember the first time, sitting beside her with our hands wrapped up tight, watching the doctor press the camera to Jordan's slight little belly, then watching the monitor to see what popped up. I had studied prenatal photographs on the Internet and I knew what to look for; I found our baby even before the doctor pointed it out. A little bean pod, really, curled up in a sea of placenta. Each time after that it grew bigger, looking more and more like a miniature human being, but no instance was as humbling as the first, sitting there watching an entire _ecosystem_ unfold inside of Jordan, our child twitching with each beat of its tiny heart. Knowing I helped put it there. I bowed my head to her neck and I kissed it, overcome with gratitude, nearly swooning.

The most terrifying day of my life was the day our first child was born.

It happened in the morning. I was in my office at my new job – a private office, with a door and a window and everything, it's really quite extraordinary – and at about nine forty-five I got a phone call from Auntie Bea. She was hysterical, really, as panicked as I'd ever heard her soothing peacenik voice become. Shrieking about how Jordan's water broke while she was behind the register and I'd better get my arse to the hospital, _now_, because she was in labor.

It was June 19th, an entire month ahead of schedule. This was not the due date we'd planned on, this was wrong and unfair and scary as sweet fuck all.

I stumbled blindly and frantically from my office with no explanations, not caring if they fired me. Too wound up to wait for the elevator, I bounded down six flights of stairs. I drove like a madman atop my new motorcycle, taking turns at illegal speeds with complete disregard for my own life and the lives of pedestrians. Nothing was more important than getting to that hospital; everything paled in comparison to the mental image of Jordan in pain, bleeding or worse, our baby so small still and so unprepared for the world. Defenseless and fragile. _It isn't ready yet_, my thoughts wildly bombarded me as I pulled into the parking lot and dismounted the bike. _Something's wrong. This is all wrong, I have to get to Jordan_.

She was crying when I finally arrived at her bedside, sobbing and reaching out for me. My strong, brave Jordan, looking so frail and vulnerable there. I threw both arms around her and clung to her and whispered and cooed. For several terrible, frightening moments I was sure that we had lost it; that we had somehow failed, but I quickly realized that Jordan was crying only because she was scared and in a lot of pain. There was still a baby there between us but it was in great jeopardy – we all were.

The labor stretched on for almost sixteen hours. The nurses tried to purposely stay it off for as long as they could with various drugs, explaining that even an extra twenty-four hours in the womb would help our baby's lungs develop further. They all kept assuring us, though, that it would be a comparatively healthy baby, probably the healthiest in the neonatal intensive care unit, and being as it was thirty-two weeks old, it would _most definitely_ survive. Later, I did a little research on premature birth and realized that babies that have only had as little as _twenty-five_ weeks to develop can _still _survive, thanks to the wonders of modern medicine. So I suppose you could say our child was only impatient, not critical.

Around one o'clock in the morning, Jordan's contractions became undeniable, and the doctor was called in. He checked around a little and announced that Jordan was fully dilated and she should start pushing; it wouldn't be long now. Every nerve in my body took a giant leap and Jordan cried, "Oh shit," and I seconded the notion. My arms were wrapped around her shoulders to support her, my body half-sitting behind her on the bed, prepared for everything, _anything_, but at the same time, nothing at all. I had studied many things about childbirth, but studying and experiencing are two very different ideas altogether.

Some fathers say that birth is beautiful, and many more say that it's disgusting. I don't suppose that I agree with either one of these opinions, really. For me, birth was terrifying and heart-wrenching and yes, beautiful, but only afterward, for during it, all I really wanted to do was cry. It was a sad, painfully emotional experience and I _did_ cry, I did, I sobbed quietly into Jordan's neck as she screamed and wailed in agony, because there was so precious little I could _do_ for her and I just felt so useless and small and insignificant, _miniscule_ in the wake of this life-altering thing, this _life_, this birth happening before me. This thing that was so horribly painful for Jordan, my dear girl, my love, and even more painful for our baby, being squeezed and pushed out by the cruel force of nature into a world so arctic and biting and _bright_... oh God. Dear God, I wanted to wave a magic wand and make all the hurt go away. I held on tight to Jordan and prayed for her, prayed like I haven't in years, in _decades_, since I was a little boy before my Mum passed away. And then... and then...

Nearly as suddenly as it had all begun, it was over. It was over, and Jordan was limp in my arms, whimpering and sobbing, and there was a tiny human being nestled in the doctor's cradle, naked and bloody and squirming. And so small. So very small, and...

"A boy," Jordan whispered, the back of her head heavy against my chest. She knew right away, with only one glance. "He's a boy."

That's when I really cried, broke down and cried so hard that Jordan had to put her tired arms around me and comfort me while they took our baby boy to a basin and bathed him, counted his fingers and toes and weighed him and wrapped him in a tiny blue blanket. Our son. My _son_.

"Five pounds, three ounces," the doctor announced in his smooth Cheshire accent, numbers I would suture to my memory for the rest of my life. "He's small, but he'll be just fine. You can have some time with him before we take him to NICU."

"May I please hold him?" my voice was deep and full of tears and I even surprised myself with my eagerness.

The doctor smiled. "I believe that's a question for his mother to answer."

I looked to Jordan apologetically, my cheeks hot with embarrassment. "I'm sorry, love," I blubbered, emotional as all hell and baffled at my uncontrollable display of it. "Of course you want to hold him first. I'm sorry."

"Oh Jesus Christ, Nige," she sighed, exhausted and exasperated and shaking her head at me. "There's no law that says I have to. Listen... listen..." Her slim, soft fingers brushed tears from my cheeks with the infinite care of a brand new mother. "Stop crying. We'll hold him together."

The poor nurse had been playing musical chairs with the baby up until this point, and now seemed relieved when Jordan gave her an approving glance and held out her arms for our son. I held out my own and we welcomed him into our shared cradle, his little body nestled against Jordan's swollen breasts, his head resting in the crook of my elbow. Jordan's temple was warm and moist against mine as we gazed down at our child together.

He was beautiful. The most beautiful boy, and I'm not saying that just because I'm his father. He was small, yes, but nestled in our arms that night he was a little jewel, his skin pale as the moon and almost transparent in its youth, light violet veins visible just below the surface in some parts, like a map. His mouth was thin and his nose was a button and his eyes, when he opened them, were hazel. Our hazel; green sometimes and brown sometimes and gold in the light. He had eyebrows that were so light they were barely there at all, a large contrast to the veritable turnip top of jet black curls that sprouted from his scalp in all directions, baby-fine and soft as silk, my color and Jordan's texture. And best of all, he had my ears. Big limey ears, round and protruding, so large that if anyone back in Boston ever had any doubts about his parentage, all they'd have to do is look at those ears and they'd know he's my son.

We decided to name him Murphy, in honor of the way he was born. At first it was just a fond little joke between Jordan and I, but Max Cavanaugh loved it because it was Irish, and so it stuck. Murphy James Townsend, the middle name adamantly insisted upon by Jordan. I didn't argue. I knew it meant something to her to do that, honoring her brother, perhaps even putting him to rest. She gave him my last name on the birth certificate and promised me she'd take it soon, too.

That first week, we visited Murphy in NICU every day, staying for hours each time. The nurses taught us all the special ways to hold and touch him, having to be extra gentle with this tiny little elf, his skin so soft and yielding and sensitive to the slightest little poke. For the first few days he had tubes in his nose to help with his breathing and it made Jordan upset to see him looking so frail, but I kept reminding her that he was growing stronger with every day that passed. And it showed; he gained weight and grew longer. The nurses showed Jordan how to breastfeed and she seemed nervous about it at first, but they explained to her that Murphy needed it more than a healthy baby would, that he actually depended on it to help him get better. I'll never forget the first time she reached for our son and brought him to her breast, how wonderfully strange it was to see her in that light. Jordan Cavanaugh, a mum. She smiled and furrowed her brows and told me she felt weird. I told her she looked beautiful to me.

Murphy was nearly seven pounds when we brought him home the following week and strong as a horse, according to the doctor. He was still a pale, fragile little thing, quiet as a churchmouse most of the time, but he no longer had trouble breathing and didn't sleep as much as he did in the hospital. Jordan's father came by for another visit, staying nearly a month this time around at Jordan's request. He slept on the sofa bed and pestered Auntie Bea and helped us in ways I will never be able to repay him for. Thank God for Max Cavanaugh; his presence was truly a blessing.

Our son is three months old now and babbles to himself in his soft baby language, fascinated whenever anyone speaks to him, watching everything we do with those huge hazel doe eyes, so much like Jordan's with their long dark lashes. He likes to tug on my hair with his little fists, and I let him even though Jordan tells me I shouldn't, that I'll I spoil him. She isn't one to talk, dear girl; she barely ever leaves Murphy to himself, and as a product of her affection, he is completely devoted to his mum, cooing at her like a purring kitten whenever she is near. I look at them sometimes when they're together and I can't believe I lucked into such an amazing little family, how if I hadn't told Jordan how I felt about her that night, if I had just kept waiting, none of this would have ever happened.

I'm thinking that right now, standing in our little kitchen preparing Murphy's bottle and watching Jordan and my son curled up together by the bay window in the front room. It's nearly twelve-thirty; Murphy woke us for a late night snack, it seems, and Jordan told me she would take care of it but I insisted on helping. I always do. They're there now, Jordan sitting on the window seat with her knees tucked up and Murphy slumped against her breast, waiting patiently for his bottle. They're pale in the moonlight, the two of them, and I would paint them if I knew how. That's how beautiful they are.

"Here we are, little beast," I whisper as I approach them, settling in behind Jordan to cradle them both. I run my palm over Murphy's satin curls and admire their color, raven bathed in blue from the moon, just like mine. I part my knees and welcome Jordan into the gap, our bare toes resting side-by-side against the seat, hers so much smaller and cuter than my long, strange slender ones.

"Thanks, Nige," Jordan whispers, accepting the bottle from me and testing it on my forearm. "Too warm?" she asks, finding my eyes over her shoulder.

"Just right," I reply, offering her a smile and nuzzling a kiss against her temple. She turns around again to feed the baby, resting her head just below my chin and letting her gaze fall down to the street below. For several blissful moments, the entire apartment is silent spare the ticking clock.

"So this is London after midnight, Jack?" Jordan observes, her words a hushed realization.

I follow her eyes to the window and the world beyond it. The moon is full and high in the sky, pristine yellow-white, thin clouds streaming across it. A fog has settled along the sidewalk, turning everything silvery gray, and mist beads the windowpanes, derivative of a Sherlock Holmes novel.

"Indeed, Sally," I whisper my agreement. "This is London after midnight."

And gathering my small family into my arms, I know that I wouldn't have it any other way.


End file.
